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Class 
Book J 







THE LIFE 



OF 



FRANCIS BACON. 



itorft Chancellor of €nglanfc 



BY 



BASIL MONTAGU, ESQ. 



'WITH ILLUSTRATIVE NOTES. 



LONDON: 
WILLIAM PICKEKING, 

MDCCCXXXIV. 



13^ 



1 






NEC TANTO CERES LABORE, UT IN FABUL1S EST, LIBERAM FERTUR QVM- 
SIVISSE FILIAM, QUANTO EGO HANC TK Kd\& ISeaV, VELUTI FULCHER- 
RIMAM QUANDAM IMAGINEM, PER OMNES RERUM FORMAS ET FACIES: 

(TroWai yap /mop<pai twv AaL/xoviojv) dies noctesque indagare 

SOLEO, ET QUASI CERTIS QUIBUSDAM VESTIGIIS DUCENTEM SECTOR. 
UNDE FIT, UT QUI, SPRETIS QU^E VULGUS PRAVA RERUM .ESTIMATIONS 
OPINATUR, ID SENTIRE ET LOQUI ET ESSE AUDET ; QUOD SUM-MA PER 
OMNE jEVUM SAPIENTIA OPTIMUM ESSE DOCUIT, ILLI ME PROTINUS, 
SICUBI REPERIAM, NECESSITATE QUADAM ADJUNGAM. QUOD SI EGO S1VE 
NATURA, SIVE MEO FATO ITA SUM COMPARATUS, UT NULLA CONTENTIONE, 
ET LABORIBUS MEIS AD TALE DECUS ET FASTIGIUM LAUDIS IPSE VALEAM 
EMERGERE ; TAMEN QUO MINUS QUI EAM GLORIAM ASSECUTI SUNT, AUT 
EO FELICITER ASPIRANT, ILLOS SEMPER COLAM, ET SUSPICIAM, NEC DII 
PUTO, NEC HOMINES PROHIBUERINT. 



THIS LIFE OF FRANCIS BACON IS INSCRIBED TO 
THE REVEREND AND LEARNED MARTIN DAVY, D. D. MASTER OF 
CAIUS COLLEGE,— HENRY BICKERSTETH,— CLEMENT T. SWANSTON, 
—GEORGE TUTH1LL, — AND TO THE MEMORY OF SAMUEL ROMILLY. 

B. ?J. 



VNVHWHdSHWHS dO 

NoiLoanco n^h^w hhx 
SS3HDNOD dO Aw>ign 



VOL. XV, 



PREFACE. 



About thirty years ago I read in the Will of Lord 
Bacon — " For my burial, I desire it may be in St. 
Michael's Church, St. Albans : there was my mother 
buried, and it is the parish church of my mansion- 
house of Gorhambury, and it is the only Christian 
church within the walls of Old Verulam. For my 
name and memory, I leave it to men's charitable 
speeches, to foreign nations and the next ages." 

This passage, not to be seen till he was at rest 
from his labours, impressed me with a feeling of his 
consciousness of ill usage, and a conviction that the 
time would arrive when justice would be done to his 
memory. Sir Philip Sydney says, " I never read 
the old song of Percy and Douglas, without feeling 
my heart stirred as by the sound of a trumpet ;" and 
assuredly this voice from the grave was not heard 
by me with less emotion. 

The words were cautiously selected, with the 
knowledge which he, above all men, possessed of 
their force and pregnant meaning, and of their certain 



8 PREFACE. 

influence, sooner or later, upon the community, (a) 
They spoke to me as loudly of a sense of injury, and 
of a reliance upon the justice of future ages, as the 
opening of the Novum Organum speaks with the 
consciousness of power : (b) 

FRANCISCUS DE VERULAMIO 
SIC COGITAVIT. 

There was also something to me truly affecting in 
the disclosure of tender natural feeling in the short 
sentence referring to his mother, which, spanning a 
whole life between the cradle and the grave, seemed 
to record nothing else worthy of a tribute of affection. 

Thus impressed I resolved to discover the real 
merits of the case. 

I found that the subject had always been involved 
in some mystery. Archbishop Tennison, the admirer 
of Lord Bacon, and the friend of Dr. Rawley, his 
domestic chaplain, thus mentions it in the Baconiana r 
" His lordship owned it under his hand, (c) that he 
was frail, and did partake of the abuses of the times ; 
and surely he was a partaker of their severities also. 
The great cause of his suffering is to some a secret. 
I leave them to find it out by his words to King 



(a) In a former will (see Baconiana, p. 203) there is the same 
wish expressed, not in such polished terms. The sentence is, 
" For my name and memory, I leave it to foreign nations and to 
mine own countrymen, after some time be passed over." 

(b) Francis or Verulam thought thus. 

(c) In his letter to King James, March 25, 1620, in the 
Cabala. 



PREFACE. 9 

James : (a) ' I wish that as I am the first, so I may 
be the last of sacrifices in your times :' and when, 
from private appetite, it is resolved that a creature 
shall be sacrificed, it is easy to pick up sticks enough 
from any thicket whither it hath strayed, to make a 
fire to offer it with." 

Dr. Rawley, (b) did not, as it seems, think it proper 
to be more explicit, because he judged " some papers 
touching matters of estate, to tread too near to the 
heels of truth and to the times of the persons con- 
cerned." 

Having read this intimation in the Baconiana, I 
procured, with some difficulty, a copy of the tract 
that contains the words to which Archbishop Tennison 
alludes. It is Bushel's Abridgment of the Lord 
Chancellor's philosophical theory, (c) This work, 
written by Bushel more than forty years after his 
master's death, abounding with constant expressions 
of affection and respect, states that, during a recess 
of parliament, the King sent for the Chancellor, and 
ordered him not to resist the charges, as resistance 
would be injurious to the King and to Buckingham, (d) 
Upon examining the journals of the House of Lords, 
I found that this interview between the King and 
the Chancellor was recorded. 

Having made this progress, I was informed that 
there were many of Lord Bacon's letters in the 



(a) See Mr. Bushel's extract, p. 19. 

(b) Baconiana, page 8 1 . 

(c) See note G G G. 

(d) See page cccxliv. 



1 PREFACE. 

Lambeth Library. I immediately applied to the 
Archbishop of Canterbury for permission to read and 
take extracts from them. With this application his 
Grace, with his usual courtesy and kindness, most 
readily complied. 

In one of the letters there is the following passage 
in Greek characters : 

Ocj> /my (xjxfrevg, <j>ap j3e it (ppoju, /me ro <ray, $ar veviaju. 
Kopvig ; VE^ar Kevcrvpa Ko\vjiif3ag : pvr i wiXX aay Bar i 
ave yoo$ uiapoavr tyoa \ Ozy ojepe vor 9e ypearear o^evcepg 
iv IcpacX v7rov oyyofx 9e am A A (peXX. (a) 

In another letter he says, " And for the briberies 
and gifts wherewith I am charged, when the books 
of hearts shall be opened, I hope I shall not be found 
to have the troubled fountain of a corrupt heart, in a 
depraved habit of taking rewards to pervert justice ; 
howsoever I may be frail, and partake of the abuses 
of the times." (b) 

From this ambiguity by a man so capable of 
expressing himself clearly, and whose favourite maxim 
was, " Do not inflate plain things into marvels, but 
reduce marvels to plain things," I was confirmed in 
the opinion which I had formed. I, therefore, pro- 
ceeded to collect the evidence. 

After great deliberation I arranged all the mate- 
rials ; and, from the chance that I might not live to 



(a) Decyphered it is as follows : Of my offence, far be it 
from me to say, dat veniam corvis ; vexat censura Columbus : 
but I will say that I have good warrant for : they were not the 
greatest offenders in Israel upon whom the wall fell. 

(b) Letter to the King, May 25, 1620. 



PREFACE. 1 1 

complete the work, I some years since prepared that 
part which relates to the charge against him, and 
entrusted it to a friend, that, in the event of my 
death, my researches might not be lost. 

The life is now submitted to public consideration. 
I cannot conclude without returning my grateful 
acknowledgments to the many friends to whom I 
am much indebted : — particularly to Archdeacon 
Wrangham, with the feeling of more than forty 
years' uninterrupted friendship; — to my intelligent 
friend, B. Hey wood Bright, for his important 
co-operation and valuable communication from the 
Tanner Manuscripts ; — to my dear friend, William 
Wood, for his encouragement during the progress of 
the work, and for his admirable translation of the 
Novum Organum. How impossible is it for me to 
express my obligations to the sweet taste of her to 
whom I am indebted for every blessing of my life ! 

I am well aware of the many faults with which 
the work abounds, and particularly of the occasional 
repetitions. I must trust to the lenient sentence of 
my reader, after he has been informed that it was not 
pursued in the undisturbed quiet of literary leisure, 
but in the few hours which could be rescued from 
arduous professional duties ; not carefully composed 
by a student in his pensive citadel, but by a daily 
" delver in the laborious mine of the law/' where 
the vexed printer frequently waited till the impatient 
client was dispatched ; and that, to publish it as it is, 
I have been compelled to forego many advantages ; 
to relinquish many of the enjoyments of social life, 
and to sacrifice not only the society, but even the 



]2 PREFACE. 

correspondence of friends very dear to me. I ask, 
and I am sure I shall not ask in vain, for their 
forgiveness. One friend the grave has closed over, 
who cheered me in my task when I was weary, and 
better able, from his rich and comprehensive mind, 
to detect errors than any man, was always more 
happy to encourage and to commend. Wise as the 
serpent, gall-less as the dove, pious and pure of 
heart, tender, affectionate and forgiving, this and more 
than this I can say, after the trial of forty years, was 
my friend and instructor, Samuel Taylor Coleridge. 

I am now to quit for ever a work upon which I 
have so long and so happily been engaged. I must 
separate from my companion, my familiar friend, 
with whom, for more than thirty years, I have taken 
sweet counsel. With a deep feeling of humility I 
think of the conclusion of my labours ; but I think 
of it with that satisfaction ever attendant upon the 
hope of being an instrument of good. " Power to 
do good is the true and lawful end of aspiring. Merit 
and good works is the end of man's motion, and 
conscience of the same is the accomplishment of 
man's rest ; for, if man can be a partaker of God's 
theatre, he will be a partaker of God's rest.'" (a) 

I please myself with the hope that I may induce 
some young man, who, at his entrance into life, is 
anxious to do justice to his powers, to enjoy that 
" suavisshna vita indies sentire se fieri meliorem" to 
look into the works of our illustrious countryman. 
I venture also to hope that, in these times of inquiry, 

(a) Essay on Great Place. 



PREFACE. 13 

the works of this philosopher may, without inter- 
fering with academical studies, be deemed deserving 
the consideration of our universities, framed, as they 
so wisely are, for the diffusion of the knowledge of 
our predecessors. Perhaps some opulent member of 
the university, when considering how he may extend 
to future times the blessings which he has enjoyed in 
his pilgrimage, may think that in the University of 
Cambridge, a Verulamian Professorship might be 
productive of good : — but these expectations may be 
the illusions of a lover ; and it is not given to man to 
love and to be wise. — There are, however, pleasures 
of which nothing can bereave me ; the consciousness 
that I have endeavoured to render some assistance to 
science and to the profession, the noble intellectual 
profession of which I am a member. How deeply, how 
gratefully do I feel ; with what a lofty spirit and 
sweet content do I think of the constant kindness of 
my many, many friends. 

And now, for the last time, I use the words of 
Lord Bacon, " Being at some pause, looking back 
into that I have passed through, this writing seemeth 
to me, ' si nunquam fallit imago,' as far as a man 
can judge of his own work, not much better than the 
noise or sound which musicians make while they are 
tuning their instruments, which is nothing pleasant 
to hear, but yet is a cause why the music is sweeter 
afterwards : so have I been content to tune the 
instruments of the muses, that they may play that 
have better hands." 

To posterity and distant ages Bacon bequeathed 
his good name, and posterity and distant ages will 



14 PREFACE. 

do him ample justice. Wisdom herself has suffered 
in his disgrace, but year after year brings to light 
proof of the arts that worked Bacon's downfall, and 
covered his character with obloquy. He will find 
some future historian who, assisted by the patient 
labours of the present editor, with all his zeal and 
ten-fold his ability; with power equal to the work 
and leisure to pursue it, will dig the statue from the 
rubbish which may yet deface it ; and, obliterating 
one by one the paltry libels scrawled upon its base, 
will place it, to the honour of true science, in a 
temple worthy of his greatness. 

B. MONTAGU. 



November 17, 1834. 



CONTENTS. 



$art I. 

FROM THE BIRTH OF BACON TO THE DEATH OF 
QUEEN ELIZABETH. 

Chapter I, 

From the Birth of Bacon to the Death of his 
Father 

His Birth. The University. New Atlantis. Paris. 
Death of his Father. Return to England. 

Chapter n. 

From the Death of his Father till he engaged 
in active life xix 

His admission at Gray's Inn. His occupations. 

Chapter ill. 

From his entrance into active life till the 
Death of Elizabeth xxv 

Parties at court. Member for Middlesex. In his first 
speech recommends improvement of the law. Justitia 
Universalis. Speech as to the subsidies, which offends 
the Queen, His dignified conduct. Ben Jonson's des- 
cription of him as a speaker. Exertions to be Solicitor 
General. Applies to the Lord Keeper, Lord Burleigh, 
Sir Robert Cecil. Essex's exertions. Fleming ap- 
pointed. Essex gives him an estate at Twickenham. 



16 CONTENTS. 

Returns to Twickenham. Invents barometer and other 
instruments. Resumes his professional labours. Em- 
ployed by the Queen. Effort to secure a vacancy. M. A. 
of Cambridge. Work on Elements of the law. Essex 
appointed to command in Spain. The Essays. Sacred 
Meditations. Colours of Good and Evil. Proposal of 
marriage to Lady Hatton. Reading on Statute of Uses. 
Essex solicits command in Ireland. Interruption of inti- 
macy between Bacon and Essex. Bacon dissuades 
Essex from accepting the command. Essex appointed 
Lord Lieutenant. His rash conduct. Intercession by 
Bacon with the Queen. Return of Essex. His impri- 
sonment. Bacon's friendship. Private investigation in 
Star Chamber. Bacon's objection to this. Apology for 
Essex. Public proceeding against Essex. Bacon coun- 
sel against Essex. Reasons for this. Trial of Essex. 
His application to the Queen after the trial. Obloquy 
of Bacon. Imprudent conduct of partizans of Essex. 
Bacon's exertions with the Queen for Essex. Writes 
letters for him. Impropriety of this. Essex liberated. 
Monopoly of Sweet Wines. Essex's violence. Bacon's 
interview with the Queen. Treason of Essex. Bacon's 
difficult situation. Trial of Essex. His Execution. 
Account of his treason. Death of the Queen. Bacon's 
praise of the Queen. 



^art II. 

FROM THE DEATH OF ELIZABETH TO THE 
DEATH OF BACON. 

Chapter I. 

From the accession of James till the publica- 
tion of the Wisdom of the Ancients . . . xcviii 

Bacon's prospects. Approach of the King. Parliament. 
Visit to Eton. Letter to Saville. Education. Great- 



CONTENTS. 17 

ness of Britain. Extent of Territory. Compactness. 
Martial valour. Riches. His parliamentary exertions. 
Advancement of Learning. Decision. Dedication. 
Objections from Divines. Politicians. Errors of learned 
men. Study of Words. Government. Posthumous 
fame. Analysis of science of Man. Exertions in active 
life. Ireland. Scotland. Church Reform. Church 
Controversies. Edification of the Church. Solicitor 
General. Cogitata et Visa. Wisdom of the Ancients. 



Chapter II. 

From the publication of the Wisdom of the 
Ancients to the publication of the Novum 
Organum cli 

Marshalsea. Charter House. Death of the Prince. 
Essays. Prosecution of Lord Sanquhar. Confession 
of Faith. Attorney General. Parliament of 1614. 
Duelling. Undertakers. Benevolences. St. John. 
Peacham. Consulting the Judges. Owen. Villiers. 
Political advice to Villiers. Overbury. Somerset. 
Disputes between King's Bench and Chancery. Privy 
Counsellor. Resignation and Death of Lord Brackley. 
Lord Keeper. His pecuniary loss. Presents to the 
Monarch and Officers of State. To the Lord Keeper. 
To Judges. Abolition in France of the Epices. King's 
journey to Scotland. Takes his seat in Chancery. His 
address. Jurisdiction. Patents. Delays. Expense. 
Spanish match. Marriage of Sir John Villiers. Finance. 
Civil List. Lord Chancellor. Wrenham. Dulwich. 
Dutch merchants. Lord Suffolk. Buckingham receives 
£20,000 for the place of Lord Treasurer. Bacon's 
judicial exertions. Buckingham's interference. Slander 
of Wraynham. Presents in the case of Egerton and 
Egerton. In Aubrey and Bronker. From Grocers and 
Apothecaries. Hody and Hody. Lord Clifford threatens 



18 CONTENTS. 

to assassinate the Chancellor. Law Reporters. Ordi- 
nances in Chancery. Judges, character of. Gardens, 
Bacon's delight in. Lincoln's Inn Fields. Gorhambury. 
His philosophical house. Alienation Office. York 
House. His sixtieth birth-day. Ben Jonson's poem. 



Chapter ill. 

From the publication of the Novum Organum 
to his retirement from active life .... cclx 

Resolution to publish Novum Organum. Literate 
Experience. Division of Instauratio Magna. Division 
of the Sciences. Novum Organum. Our powers. 
Defects of the Senses. Division of Idols. Idols of the 
Tribe : of the Market : of the Den : of the Theatre. 
Destruction of Idols. Our motives for acquiring know- 
ledge. Obstacles to acquiring knowledge. Want of 
time. Want of means. Right road. Formation of 
opinion. Affirmative table. Negative table. Table of 
comparisons. Table of results. Instances, solitary, 
travelling, journeying, constituent, patent, maxima, 
frontier, singular, divorced, deviating, crucial. Diffe- 
rences. Parliamentary proceedings. Charge of bribery. 
Decision against donors. Presents advised by counsel. 
Custom of receiving presents. Error of judging of 
past by present times. Presents made by men of emi- 
nence. Presents of furniture. Presents customary. No 
influence on judgment. Particular charges. Fears of 
the King and Buckingham. Advice of Williams. Inter- 
view with the King. Meeting of Parliament. King's 
speech. Letter to the Lords. Letter to the King. 
Sentence. His silence. Letter from the Tower. Letter 
to the King. Lambeth Library. His will. Silence of 
friends. Tennison. Bushel. Williams, Lord Keeper. 



CONTENTS. 19 

Chapter iv. 

From his Fall to his Death .... ccclxxviii 

Imprisonment of Bacon. Liberation. Release of 
fine. History of Henry VII. Greatness of states. 
Familiar illustrations. His piety. Eton College. De 
Augmentis. History of Life and Death. Importance of 
knowledge of the body. Consumption. Vital spirit. 
All bodies have a spirit. Flight. Death. Importance of 
science of Animal Spirit. Bacon's works after his retire- 
ment. Gondomar. D'EfBat. Sir Julius Csesar. Selden. 
Ben Jonson. Meautys. Bacon's pardon. Death of 
James. Decline of Bacon's health. Apothegms. Psalms. 
Confession of Faith. Prayers. Student's prayer. 
Author's prayer. Chancellor's prayer. Prayers in the 
Instauration — in the De Augmentis — in the Novum 
Organum — in the Instauratio, third part — in the Minor 
publications. Paradoxes. Letters. Scepticism, nature 
of. Rawley's statement. Bacon's will. Cause of Bacon's 
death. Bacon's last letter. Opening of Bacon's will. 
Funeral. Monument. Meautys. Bacon's temperament. 
Bacon's person. His mind. Extent of views. Senses. 
Imagination. Understanding. Temporary inability to 
acquire knowledge. Particular studies. Memory. 
Composition. Causes of Bacon's entering active life. 
Bacon's entrance into active life. His motive for reform. 
Reformer. Bacon as a Lawyer — Judge- — Patron — 
Statesman. Reform as Statesman and Lawyer — as 
Statesman. Reform of law. His private life. Conver- 
sation. Wit. Religious. Conclusion. 



LIFE OF BACON. 






CHAPTER L 

FROM HIS BIRTH TILL THE DEATH OF HIS FATHER. 

1560 to 1580. 

Francis Bacon was bora at York-House,(a) in the Strand, 1560-1. 
on the 22nd of January, 1560. He was the youngest son of Hls birth " 
Sir Nicholas Bacon, and of Anne, a daughter of the learned 
and contemplative Sir Anthony Cooke, tutor to King 
Edward the Sixth, (b) 

Of Sir Nicholas, it has been said, that he was a man 
full of wit and wisdom, a learned lawyer, and a true 
gentleman; of a mind the most comprehensive to sur- 
round the merits of a cause ; of a memory to recollect its 
least circumstance ; # of the deepest search into affairs of 
any man at the council table, and of a personal dignity so 
well suited to his other excellencies, that his royal mis- 
tress was wont to say, " My Lord keeper's soul is well 
lodged."(c) 

He was still more fortunate in the rare qualities of his 
mother,(e?) for Sir Anthony Cooke, acting upon his favorite 



(a) See note A at the end. (6) See note B at the end. 

* " He who cannot contract his sight as well as dilate it, wanteth a 
great faculty ;" says Lord Bacon. 

(c) See note C at the end. (d) See note D at the end. 

VOL. xv. b 



11 LIFE OF BACON. 

opinion then very prevalent,^) that women were as capable 
of learning as men, carefully instructed his daughters every 
evening, in the lessons which he had taught the King 
during the day; and amply were his labors rewarded; for 
he lived to see all his daughters happily married; and 
Lady Anne distinguished, not only for her conjugal and 
maternal virtues, but renowned (a) as an excellent scholar, 
and the translator, from the Italian, of various sermons 
of Ochinus, a learned divine; and, from the Latin, of 
Bishop Jewel's Apologia, recommended by Archbishop 
Parker for general use. (b) 

It was his good fortune not only to be born of such parents, 
but also at that happy time " when learning (c) had made 
her third circuit; when the art of printing gave books with 
a liberal hand to men of all fortunes; when the nation 
had emerged from the dark superstitions of popery ; when 
peace, throughout all Europe, permitted the enjoyment of 
foreign travel and free ingress to foreign scholars; and, 
above all, when a Sovereign of the highest intellectual 
attainments, at the same time that she encouraged learning 
and learned men, gave an impulse to the arts, and a 
chivalric and refined tone to the manners of the people. 

(e) See note E at the end. 

(a) She translated from the Italian fourteen sermons concerning the pre- 
destination and election of God, without date, 8vo. See Watt's Bibliotheca 
Britannica. Title, Ochinus and Anne Cooke. — N.B. There is a publica- 
tion entitled, " Sermons to the number of twenty-five, concerning the Pre- 
destination." London: Printed by J. Day, without date, 8vo. — Query, 
If by Lady Bacon. 

(b) Ochinus Barnardin, an Italian monk of extraordinary merit, born at 
Sienna 1487. Died 1594. Watts (S.A.) Jewel's Apologia translated by 
Anne Bacon 1600, 1606, 1609, Fol. 1626, 12mo. 1685, 1719, 8vo. See 
Watts Tit. " Jewel." 

(c) See Bacon's beautiful conclusion of Civil Knowledge in the advance- 
ment of learning, which is in vol. 2. page 297 of this edition. 



LIFE OF BACON. Ill 

Bacon's health was always delicate, and his tempera- 
ment was of such sensibility, as to be affected, even to 
fainting, by very slight alterations in the atmosphere; a 
constitutional infirmity which seems to have attended him 
through life.(g) 

While he was yet a child, the signs of Genius, for which 
he was in after life distinguished, could not have escaped 
the notice of his intelligent parents. They must have been 
conscious of his extraordinary powers, and of their respon- 
sibility that, upon the right direction of his mind, his 
future eminence, whether as a statesman or as a philoso- 
pher, almost wholly depended. 

He was cradled in politics ; he was not only the son of 
the Lord Keeper, but the nephew of Lord Burleigh. He 
had lived from his infancy amidst the nobility of the reign 
of Elizabeth, who was herself delighted, even in his child- 
hood, to converse with him, and to prove him with ques- 
tions, which he answered with a maturity above his years, 
and with such gravity that the Queen would often call him 
her young Lord Keeper.(A) Upon the Queen's asking him, 
when a child, how old he was, he answered, " two years 
younger than your majesty's happy reign." 

But there were dawnings of genius of a much higher 
nature, (x) When a boy, while his companions were 
diverting themselves near to his father's house in St. 
James's Park, he stole to the brick conduit to dis- 
cover the cause of a singular echo;(c) and, in his twelfth 

(g) See note G at the end. 

(h) See note H at the end. 

(x) See Paradise Regained, B. I. "When I was yet a child/' &c. — See 
Burns : " I saw thee seek the sounding shore/ 7 &c. — See Beattie's Minstrel ; 
" Baubles he heeded not," &c. 

(c) The laws of sound were always a subject of his thoughts. In the third 
century of the Sylva, he says, " we have laboured, as may appear, in this 



IV LIFE OF BACON. 

year, he was meditating upon the laws of the imagina- 
tion, (t) 
1573. At the early age of thirteen, it was resolved to send him 

iEt. 13. to Cambridge, of which university, he, with his brother 

The urn- & ' J 

versity. Anthony, was matriculated as a member, on the 10th of 



inquisition of sounds diligently ; both because sound is one of the most 
hidden portions of nature, and because it is a virtue which may be called 
incorporeal and immateriate, whereof there be in nature but few." 

As one of the facts, he says in his Sylva Syl varum, (Art. 140.) "There 
is in St. James's fields a conduit of brick, unto which joineth a low vault ; 
and at the end of that a round house of stone ; and in the brick conduit 
there is a window; and in the round house a slit or rift of some little 
breadth : if you cry out in the rift, it will make a fearful roaring at the win- 
dow. The cause is, for that all concaves, that proceed from more narrow- 
to more broad, do amplify the sound at the coming out." 

(t) In the tenth century of the Sylva, after having enumerated many of 
the idle imaginations by which the world then was, and, more or less, always 
will be, misled, he says, " W ith these vast and bottomless follies men have 
been in part entertained. But we, that hold firm to the works of God, and 
to the sense, which is God's lamp, lucerna Dei spiraculum hominis, will 
inquire with all sobriety and severity, whether there be to be found in the 
footsteps of nature, any such transmission and influx of immateriate virtues ; 
and what the force of imagination is, either upon the body imaginant, or 
upon another body. 

He then proceeds to state the different kinds of the power of imagination, 
saying it is in three kinds : the first, upon the body of the imaginant, in- 
cluding likewise the child in the mother's womb ; the second is, the power 
of it upon dead bodies, as plants, wood, stone, metal, &,c. ; the third is, the 
power of it upon the spirits of men and living creatures ; and with this 
last we will only meddle. 

The problem therefore is, whether a man constantly and strongly be- 
lieving that such a thing shall be ; as that such a one will love him ; or 
that such a one will grant him his request ; or that such a one shall recover 
a sickness, or the like, it doth help any thing to the effecting of the thing 
itself. 

In the solution of this problem he, according to his custom, enumerates 
a variety of instances, and, amongst others, the following fact, which oc- 
curred to him when a child, for he left his father's house when he was 
thirteen. 

For example, he says, I related one time to a man, that was curious and 



LIFE OF BACON. V 

June, 1573. (A;) They were both admitted of Trinity Col- 
lege, under the care of Dr. John Whitgift,(c) a friend of 
the Lord Keeper's, then master of the college, afterwards 
Archbishop of Canterbury, and distinguished through life, 
not only for his piety, but for his great learning, and un- 
wearied exertions to promote the public good. 



vain enough in these things ; that I saw a kind of juggler, that had a pair 
of cards, and would tell a man what card he thought. This pretended 
learned man told me, it was a mistaking in me ; for (said he) it was not 
the knowledge of the man's thought, (for that is proper to God,) but it was 
the inforcing of a thought upon him, and binding his imagination by a 
stronger, that he could think no other card. And thereupon he asked me a 
question or two, which I thought he did but cunningly, knowing before 
what used to be the feats of the juggler. Sir, (said he), do you remember 
whether he told the card the man thought himself, or bade another to tell 
it. I answered, (as was true), that he bade another tell it. Whereunto 
he said, so I thought ; for (said he) himself could not have put on so 
strong an imagination, but by telling the other the card, (who believed that 
the juggler was some strange man, and could do strange things,) that other 
man caught a strong imagination. I hearkened unto him, thinking for a 
vanity he spoke prettily. Then he asked me another question : saith he, do 
you remember whether he bade the man think the card first, and afterwards 
told the other man in his ear, what he should think, or else that he did whisper 
first in the man's ear, that should tell the card, telling that such a man 
should think such a card, and after bade the man think a card ; I told him, 
as was true ; that he did first whisper the man in the ear, that such a man 
should think such a card ; upon this the learned man did much exult, and 
please himself, saying, lo, you may see that my opinion is right; for if 
the man had thought first, his thought had been fixed ; but the other ima- 
gining first, bound his thought. Which though it did somewhat sink with 
me, yet I made lighter than I thought, and said, I thought it was confede- 
racy between the juggler and the two servants ; though (indeed) I had no 
reason so to think ; for they were both my father's servants ; and he had 
never played in the house before. 

(k) An. 1573. Jun. 10. Antonius Bacon Coll. Trin. Convict, i. admissus 
in matriculam acad. Cantabr. 

Franciscus Bacon Coll. Trin. Convict, i. admissus in matriculam aca- 
demiae Cantabr. eodem die & anno. (Reg r Acad.) 

(c) See the Biog. Brit. In 1565, Whitgift so distinguished himself in 
the pulpit, that the Lord Keeper recommended him to the queen. 



VI LIFE OF BACON. 

What must have passed in his youthful, thoughtful, 
ardent mind, at this eventful moment, when he first quitted 
his father's house to engage in active life ? What must 
have been his feelings when he approached the university, 
and saw, in the distance, the lofty spires, and towers, and 
venerable walls, raised by intellect and piety " and hal- 
lowed by the shrines where the works of the mighty dead 
are preserved and reposed, (a) and by the labours of the 
mighty living, with joint forces directing their strength 
against Nature herself, to take her high towers, and dis- 
mantle her fortified holds, and thus enlarge the borders of 
man's dominion, so far as Almighty God of his goodness 
shall permit V\b) 

" As water," he says, " whether it be the dew of heaven, 
or the springs of the earth, doth scatter and lose itself in the 
ground, except it be collected into some receptacle, where 
it may by union comfort and sustain itself, and for that 
cause the industry of man hath made and framed spring- 



(a) But the works touching Books are chiefly two : first, Libraries, wherein, 
as in famous shrines, the reliques of the ancient saints, full of virtue, are 
reposed. Secondly, New Editions of Authors, with corrected impressions ; 
more faithful T?^anslations, more profitable glosses, more diligent annota- 
tions; with the like train furnished and adorned. 

In a letter to Sir Thomas Bodley, he says, " and the second copy I have 
sent unto you, not only in good affection, but in a kind of congmity, in 
regard of your great and rare desert of learning. For books are the shrines 
where the saint is, or is believed to be. And you, having built an ark to 
save learning from deluge, deserve propriety in any new instrument or 
engine, whereby learning should be improved or advanced." — Steph. 19. 

(b) Nor doth our trumpet summon, and encourage men to tear and 
rend one another with contradictions ; and in a civil rage to bear arms, and 
wage war against themselves; but rather, a peace concluded between them, 
they may with joint forces direct their strength against Nature herself; and 
take her high towers, and dismantle her fortified holds ; and thus enlarge 
the borders of man's dominion, so far as Almighty God of his goodness 
shall permit. Adv. Learn. 



LIFE OF BACON. Vll 

heads, conduits, cisterns, and pools, which men have ac- 
customed likewise to beautify and adorn with accomplish- 
ments of magnificence and state, as well as of use and 
necessity; so this excellent liquor of knowledge, whether 
it descend from divine inspiration, or spring from human 
sense, would soon perish and vanish to oblivion, if it were 
not preserved in books, traditions, conferences, and places 
appointed ; as universities, colleges, and schools, for the 
receipt and comforting of the same. All tending to quiet- 
ness and privateness of life, and discharge of cares and 
troubles ; much like the stations which Virgil prescribeth 
for the hiving of bees : 

Principio sedes apibus statioque petenda, 
Quo neque sit ventis aditus, etc. 

Such were his imaginations of the tranquillity and occu- 
pations in our universities. 

He could not long have resided in Cambridge before he 
must have discovered his erroneous notions of the mighty . 
living, and of the pursuits in which they were engaged. 
Instead of students ready at all times to acquire any sort 
of knowledge, he found himself " amidst men of sharp and 
strong wits, and abundance of leisure, and small variety of 
reading, their wits being shut up in the cells of a few 
authors, chiefly Aristotle their dictator, as their persons 
were shut up in the cells of monasteries and colleges ; and 
knowing little history, either of nature or time, did, out of 
no great quantity of matter, and infinite agitation of wit, 
spin cobwebs of learning, admirable for the fineness of 
thread and work, but of no substance or profit." (a) 

(a) See the Advancement of Learning, under Contentious Learning. See 
Gibbon's Memoirs. See vol. viii. London Magazine, page 509. Let him 
who is fond of indulging in a dream-like existence go to Oxford, and 
stay there ; let him study this magnificent spectacle, the same under all 
aspects, with its mental twilight tempering the glare of noontide, or mel- 



Vlll LIFE OF BACON. 

Instead of the University being formed for the discovery 
of truths, he saw that its object was merely to preserve 
and diffuse the knowledge of our predecessors : instead of 
general inquiry, he found that all studies were confined to 
Aristotle, who was considered infallible in philosophy, a 
Dictator to command, not a Consul to advise ; # the lectures, 
both in private in the colleges, and in public in the schools, 
being but expositions of his text, and comments upon his 
opinions, held as authentic as if they had been given under 
the seal of the Pope.(o) Their infallibility, however, he was 
not disposed to acknowledge. Whilst in the university he 
formed his dislike of the philosophy of Aristotle, not for the 
worthlessness of the author, to whose gigantic intellect he 
ever ascribed all high attributes, but for the unfruitfulness 
of his method, being a philosophy, as he was wont to say, 
strong for disputations and contentions,(6) but barren for 
the production of works for the benefit and use of man : 
, which, according to Bacon's opinion, is the only test of the 
purity of our motives for acquiring knowledge and of the 
value of knowledge when acquired ; " Men," he says, " have 
entered into a desire of knowledge sometimes from a natural 
curiosity and inquisitive appetite; sometimes to entertain 
their minds with variety and delight ; sometimes for 
ornament and reputation; sometimes to enable them to 
victory of wit and contradiction, and most times for lucre 
and profession ; and seldom sincerely to give a true account 

lowing the shadowy moonlight ; let him wander in her sylvan suburbs, or 
linger in her cloistered halls ; but let him not catch the din of scholars or 
teachers, or dine or sup with them, or speak a word to any of the privileged 
inhabitants; for if he does, the spell will be broken, the poetry and the 
religion gone, and the palace of enchantment will melt from his embrace 
into thin air. 

* See Advancement of Learning, under Credulity, vol. ii. of this edition, 
p. 43. 

(a) Tennison (6) Rawley — Tennison. 



LIFE OF BACON. IX 

of their gift of reason, for the benefit and use of man : — as 
if there were sought in knowledge a couch whereupon to 
rest a searching and restless spirit; or a terrace for a 
wandering and variable mind to walk up and down, with a 
fair prospect ; or a tower of state for a proud mind to raise 
itself upon ; or a fort or commanding ground for strife and 
contention; or a shop for profit and sale; and not a rich 
store-house for the glory of the Creator and the relief of 
man's estate." 

It was not likely that, with such sentiments he would 
meet with much sympathy in the university. It was still 
less probable that the antipathy by which he was opposed 
would check the ardour of his powerful mind. He went 
right onward in his course, unmoved by the disapprobation 
of men who turned from enquiries which they neither en- 
couraged nor understood : and, seeing through the mists, 
by a light refracted from below the horizon, that knowledge 
must be raised on other foundations, and built with other 
materials than had been used through a long tract of many 
centuries, he continued his enquiries into the laws of 
nature, (a) and planned his immortal work upon which he 
laboured during the greater part of his life, (b) and ulti- 
mately published when he was Chancellor, saying, " I have 
held up a light in the obscurity of Philosophy ; which will 
be seen centuries after I am dead/'(c) 



(a) I remember in Trinity College in Cambridge, there was an upper 
chamber, which being thought weak in the roof of it, was supported by a 
pillar of iron of the bigness of one's arm in the midst of the chamber; which 
if you had struck, it would make a little flat noise in the room where it was 
struck, but it would make a great bomb in the chamber beneath. — Sylva. 

(b) See note 1 at end. 

(c) See the dedication of the Novum Organum to the king. " Mortuus 
fortasse id effecero, ut ilia posteritati, nova hac accensa face in philosophise 
tenebris, perlucere possint. 



X LIFE OF BACON. 

1575. After two years residence he quitted the university with 
15. £] ie conviction not only that these seminaries of learning 
were stagnant, but that they were opposed to the advance- 
ment of knowledge. " In the universities," he says, " they 
learn nothing but to believe : first, to believe that others 
know that which they know not; and after, themselves 
know that which they know not. They are like a becalmed 
ship ; they never move but by the wind of other men's 
breath, and have no oars of their own to steer withal :"(d) 
and in his Novum Organum, which he published when 
he was Chancellor, he repeats what he had said when a 
boy. " In the universities, all things are found opposite 
to the advancement of the sciences ; for the readings and 
exercises are here so managed that it cannot easily come 
into any one's mind to think of things out of the common 
road: or if, here and there, one should venture to use a 
liberty of judging, he can only impose the task upon 
himself without obtaining assistance from his fellows; and 
if he could dispense with this, he will still find his in- 
dustry and resolution a great hinderance to his fortune. 
For the studies of men in such places are confined, and 
pinned down to the writings of certain authors ; from which 
if any man happens to differ, he is presently reprehended 
as a disturber and innovator." (e) 

Whether the intellectual gladiatorship by which stu- 
dents in the universities of England are now stimulated, 
then prevailed, does not appear, but his dislike of this 
motive he early and always avowed. " It is," he says, 
" an unavoidable decree with us ever to retain our native 
candour and simplicity, and not attempt a passage to truth 
under the conduct of vanity ; for, seeking real nature with 

(d) See the tract in Praise of Knowledge, vol. i. of this edition, page 254. 

(e) Ax. 90. Lib. i. 



LIFE OF BACON. XI 

all her fruits about her, we should think it a betraying of 
our trust to infect such a subject either with an ambitious, 
an ignorant, or any other faulty manner of treating it."( a ) 
Some years after Bacon had quitted Cambridge, he 
published his opinions upon the defects of universities ; (b) 
in which, after having warned the community that, as 
colleges are established for the communication of the 
knowledge of our predecessors, there should be a college 
appropriated to the discovery of new truths, a living spring 
to mix with the stagnant waters, (c) " Let it," he says, 
" be remembered that there is not any collegiate education 
of statesmen, and that this has not only a malign influence 
upon the growth of sciences, but is prejudicial to states 
and governments, and is the reason why princes find a 
solitude in regard of able men to serve them in causes of 
state/' (d) 

(a) See the chapter on Vanity, in the admirable work, " Search's Light 
of Nature :" where the distinction between the Love of Excelling and the 
Love of Excellence as a motive for acquiring knowledge is fully explained. 

(b) See note K at the end. 

(c) See the sixth defect of universities, in Note M at the end, where he 
says, the " serpent of Moses should devour the serpents of the enchanters" 

(d) Bacon says, first, therefore, amongst so many great foundations of 
colleges in Europe, I find strange that they are all dedicated to professions, 
and none left free to arts and sciences at large. And this I take to be a 
great cause, that hath hindered the progression of learning, because these 
fundamental knowledges have been studied but in passage. For if you 
will have a tree bear more fruit than it hath used to do, it is not any thing 
you can do to the boughs, but it is the stirring of the earth, and putting new 
mould about the roots, that must work it. Neither is it to be forgotten, 
that this dedicating of foundations and dotations to professory learning, hath 
not only had a malign aspect and influence upon the growth of sciences, but 
hath also been prejudicial to states and governments. For hence it pro- 
ceeded that princes find a solitude in regard of able men to serve them in 
causes of state, because there is no education collegiate which is free, where 
such as were so disposed might give themselves to histories, modern 
languages, books of policy and civil discourse, and other the like enable- 
ments unto service of state. See Note L at the end. This truth, confirmed 



Xll LIFE OF BACON. 

These warnings seem to have been disregarded, and the 
art of governing, not a ship, which would not be attempted 
without a knowledge of navigation, but the ship of the 
state, is entrusted, not to a knowledge of the principles of 
human nature, but to the knowledge of Latin and Greek 
and verbal criticisms upon the dead languages, (x) 

And what has been the result? During the last two 
centuries one class of statesmen has resisted all improve- 
ment, and their opponents have been hurried into intem- 
perate alterations : whilst philosophy, lamenting these 
contentions, has, instead of advancing the science of govern- 
ment, been occupied in counteracting laws founded upon 
erroneous principles ; Erroneous commercial laws ; Erro- 
neous laws against civil and religious liberty ; and Erro- 
neous criminal laws. Or) 

by daily experience, was, fifty years after his death, repeated by Milton, 
who indignantly says, " when young men quit the university for the trade of 
law, they ground their purposes, not on the prudent and heavenly contem- 
plation of justice and equity, which was never taught them, but on the 
promising and pleasing thoughts of litigious terms, fat contentions and flow- 
ing fees : and, if they quit it for state affairs, they betake themselves to this 
trust with souls so unprincipled in virtue and true generous breeding, that 
flattery and court-shifts and tyrannous aphorisms appear to them the highest 
points of wisdom." After having prescribed the proper order of education, 
he adds, The next removal must be to the study of politics ; to know the 
beginning, end, and reasons of political societies ; that they may not in a 
dangerous fit of the commonwealth be such poor, shaken, uncertain reeds, 
of such a tottering conscience, as many of our great counsellors have lately 
shown themselves, but steadfast pillars of the state. After this they are to 
drive into the grounds of law and legal justice, delivered first, and with best 
warrant to Moses, and as far as human prudence can be trusted, in those 
extolled remains of Grecian lawgivers, Lycurgus, Solon, &c. and thence 
to all the Roman edicts and tables with their Justinian; and so to the 
Saxon laws of England. Milton. Education, vol. i. p. 270. 

(x) " Such," says Milton, " are the errors, such the fruits of mispending 
our prime youth at schools and universities as we do, either in learning 
mere words, or such things chiefly as were better unlearned. See his Tract 
on Education. 



LIFE OF BACON. Xlll 

So deeply was Bacon impressed with the magnitude of 
this evil, that, by his will he endowed two lectures in 
either of the universities, by " a lecturer, whether stranger 
or English, provided he is not professed in divinity, law, 
or physic."(w) 

The subject of universities, and the importance to the Atlantis. 
community and to the advancement of science, that the 
spring should not be poisoned or polluted, was ever present 
to his mind, — and, in the decline of his life, he prepared 
the plan of a college for the knowledge of the works and 
creations of God, " from the cedar of Libanus to the moss 
that groweth out of the wall :" but the plan was framed 
upon a model so vast, that, without the purse of a prince 
and the assistance of a people, all attempts to realize it 
must be vain and hopeless. Some conception of his gor- 
geous mind in the formation of this college, may appear 
even at the entrance. 

" We have (he says,) two very long and fair galleries : 
in one of these we place patterns and samples of all man- 
ner of the more rare and excellent inventions ; in the 
other we place the statues of all principal inventors. There 
we have the statue of your Columbus, that discovered the 
West Indies ; also the inventor of ships ; your monk that 
was the inventor of ordnance and of gunpowder ; the in- 
ventor of music ; the inventor of letters ; the inventor of 
printing; the inventor of observations of astronomy; the 
inventor of works in metal ; the inventor of glass ; the in- 
ventor of silk of the worm ; the inventor of wine ; the in- 
ventor of corn and bread ; the inventor of sugars ; and all 
these by more certain tradition than you have. Upon 
every invention of value, we erect a statue to the inventor, 
and give him a liberal and honourable reward. These 

(w) See note M at the end. 



XIV LIFE OF BACON. 

statues are some of brass ; some of marble and touchstone ; 
some of cedar and other special woods gilt and adorned ; 
some of iron • some of silver * some of gold." (m) 

Such is the splendour of the portico, or ante-room. 
Passing beyond it, every thing is to be found which ima- 
gination can conceive or reason suggest, (n) 

(m) This entrance to Bacon's college always forces itself on my mind, 
when I visit the University Library of Cambridge : in which I see the 
portrait of Mr. Thomas Nicholson, known by the name of Maps, the pro- 
prietor of a circulating library, a laborious pioneer in literature. Under 
his feet are some relics from classic ground, more valuable, perhaps, for 
their antiquity than for their beauty. Delightful as is the love of antiquity, 
this artificial retrospective extension of our existence (see Shakespeare's 
Sonnet 123), might it not be adoned, in the present times, by casts from 
the Elgin marbles, of which the cost does not exceed £200. By one 
of the universities (I think it is of Dublin) these casts have been procured. 
Let any parent of the mind, who considers the various modes by which 
the heart of a nation is formed (which is beautifully described in Ramsden's 
sermon on the Cessation of Hostilities), look in Boydell's Shakespeare, at 
Barry's Cordelia, to be found, most probably, in the Fitzwilliam collection : 
and let him compare it with the magnificent affecting fainting female in 
the Elgin marbles, and he will see the benefit which would result from 
the university containing these valuable relics. 

(n) We have large and deep caves of several depths : the deepest are 
sunk six hundred fathom, and some of them are digged and made under 
great hills and mountains ; so that if you reckon together the depth of the 
hill and the depth of the cave, they are (some of them) above three miles 
deep : these caves we call the lower region, and we use them for all coagu- 
lations, indurations, refrigerations, and conservations of bodies. We use 
them likewise for the imitation of natural mines, and the producing also of 
new artificial metals., by compositions and materials. 

We have high towers, the highest about half a mile in height, and 
some of them likewise set upon high mountains, so that the vantage of the 
hill with the tower is in the highest of them three miles at least. And these 
places we call the upper region. We use these towers, according to their 
several heights and situations, for insolation, refrigeration, conservation, and 
for the view of divers meteors, as winds, rain, snow, hail, and some of the 
fiery meteors. 

We have great lakes, both salt and fresh ; whereof we have use for the 
fish and fowl. We use them also for burials of some natural bodies : for we 



LIFE OF BACON". XV 

After having enumerated all the instruments of know- 
ledge, " Such," he says, " is a relation of the true state of 
Solomon's house, the end of which foundation is the know- 
ledge of causes, and secret motions of things; and the 



find a difference in things buried in earth, or in air below the earth ; and 
things buried in water. We have also some rocks in the midst of the sea ; 
and some bays upon the shore for some works, wherein is required the air 
and vapour of the sea. We have likewise violent streams and cataracts, 
which serve us for many motions : and likewise engines for multiplying 
and enforcing of winds, to set also on going divers motions. 

We have also a number of artificial wells and fountains, made in imi- 
tation of the natural sources and baths ; as tincted upon vitriol, sulphur, 
steel, brass, lead, nitre, and other minerals. 

We have also great and spacious houses, where we imitate and de- 
monstrate meteors, as snow, hail, rain, some artificial rains of bodies, and 
not of water, thunders, lightnings. 

We have also certain chambers, which we call chambers of health, 
where we qualify the air as we think good and proper for the care of divers 
diseases, and preservation of health. We have also fair and large baths of 
several mixtures, for the cure of diseases. 

We have also large and various orchards and gardens; wherein we 
do not so much respect beauty, as variety of ground and soil, proper for 
divers trees and herbs : and some very spacious, where trees and berries 
are set, whereof we make divers kinds of drinks, besides the vineyards. In 
these we practise likewise all conclusions of grafting and inoculating, as well 
of wild trees as fruit-trees, which produceth many effects. 

W T e have also furnaces of great diversities, and that keep great diver- 
sity of heats, fierce and quick, strong and constant, soft and mild, blown, 
quiet, dry, moist, and the like. But above all we have heats, in imitation 
of the sun's and heavenly bodies heats, that pass divers inequalities, and (as 
it were) orbs, progresses and returns, whereby we may produce admirabje 
effects. 

We procure means of seeing objects afar off, as in the heaven, and 
remote places ; and represent things near as afar off, and things afar off as 
near, making feigned distances. We have also helps for the sight, far above 
spectacles and glasses. 

We have also parks and enclosures of all sorts of beasts and birds; 
which we use not only for view or rareness, but likewise for dissections and 
trials, that thereby we may take light what may be wrought upon the body 
of man . 



France. 



XVI LIFE OF BACON. 

enlarging of the bounds of human empire, to the effecting 
of all things possible." (») 

In these glorious inventions of one rich mind, may be 
traced much of what has been effected in science and me- 
chanics, since Bacon's death, and more that will be effected 
during the next two centuries. 
1576, After three years residence in the university, his father 

Mt. 16. sent him, at the age of sixteen, to Paris, under the care of 
Sir Amias Paulett, the English ambassador at that court : (a) 
by whom, soon after his arrival, he was entrusted with a 
mission to the queen, requiring both secrecy and dispatch : 
which he executed with such ability as to gain the appro- 
bation of the queen, and justify Sir Amias in the choice of 
his youthful messenger. 

From the confidence thus reposed in him, and from the 

We have also particular pools where we make trials upon fishes, as we 
have said before of beasts and birds. 

We have also places for breed and generation of those kinds of worms 
and flies which are of special use, such as are with you your silk-worms 
and bees. 

We have also precious stones of all kinds, many of them of great 
beauty and unknown ; crystals and glasses of divers kinds. We represent 
also ordnance and instruments of war, and engines of all kinds ; and like- 
wise new mixtures and compositions of gunpowder, wild-fires burning in 
water and unquenchable; also fire-works of all variety, both for pleasure 
and use. We imitate also flights of birds ; we have some degrees of flying 
in the air; we have ships and boats for going under water, and brooking of 
seas; also swimming girdles and supporters. 

We have also sound houses, where we practise and demonstrate all 
sounds, and their generation. We have harmonies which you have not, of 
quarter sounds, and lesser slides of sounds. Divers instruments of music, 
likewise to you unknown, some sweeter than any you have ; with bells and 
rings that are dainty and sweet. 

We have also a mathematical house, where are all instruments, as well of 
geometry as astronomy, exquisitely made. We have also houses of deceits 
of the senses, &c. &c. 

(w) See Note N at the end, for an account of the New Atlantis. 

(a) Rawley, see note O at the end. 



IN FRANCE. XV11 

impression made upon all with whom he conversed, upon 
men of letters, with whom he contracted lasting friendships, 
upon grave statesmen and learned philosophers, it was 
manifest that the promise in his infancy of excellence, 
whether for active or for contemplative life, seemed beyond 
the most sanguine expectation to be realized, (a) 

After the appointment of Sir Amias Paulett's successor, 
Bacon travelled into the French provinces, and spent some 
time at Poictiers. He prepared a work upon Cyphers, (b) 
which he afterwards published, with an outline of the state 
of Europe, (c) but the laws of sound and of imagination 
continued to occupy his thoughts, (z) 

(a) It is a fact not unworthy of notice, that an eminent artist, to whom, 
when in Paris, he sat for his portrait, was so conscious of his inability to do 
justice to his extraordinary intellectual endowments, that he has written on 
the side of his picture : Si tabula daretur digna animum mallem. — See 
the last note in the Notes to this Life. 

(b) In the AugmentisScientiarum, Lib. vi. speaking of Cyphers, he says, 
Ut vero suspicio omnis absit, aliud inventum subjiciemus, quod certe cum 
adolescentuli essemus Parisiis excogitavimus, nee etiam adhuc visa nobis 
res digna est quae pereat. Watts' English Translation of this part is as 
follows : But that jealousies may be taken away, we will annex another 
invention, which, in truth, we devised in our youth, when we were at 
Paris : and is a thing that yet seemeth to us not worthy to be lost. It 
containeth the highest degree of cypher, which is to signify omnia per 
omnia, yet so, as the writing infolding, may bear a quintuple proportion to 
the writing infolded ; no other condition or restriction whatsoever is required. 
See p. 314, of vol. viii. of this edition. 

(c) See note Q at the end. 

(z) His meditations were both upon natural science and human sciences, 
as will appear from the following facts. 

In his history of life and death, speaking of the differences between youth 
and old age, and having enumerated many of them, he proceeds thus : 
When I was a young man at Poictiers in France, I familiarly conversed 
with a young gentleman of that country, who was extremely ingenious, but 
somewhat talkative; he afterwards became a person of great eminence. 
This gentleman used to inveigh against the manners of old people, and 
would say, that if one could see their minds as well as their bodies, their 
minds would appear as deformed as their bodies ; and indulging his own 
VOL. XV. C 



XV111 LIFE OF BACON. 

1579. Whilst he was engaged in these meditations his father 

Mt 19 

died suddenly, on the 20th February, 1579. He instantly 

returned to England. 

humour, he pretended, that the defects of old men's minds, in some 
measure corresponded to the defects of their bodies. Thus dryness of the 
skin, he said, was answered by impudence ; hardness of the viscera, by 
relentlessness ; blear-eyes, by envy ; and an evil eye, their down look, and 
incurvation of the body, by atheism, as no longer, says he, looking up to 
heaven ; the trembling and shaking of the limbs, by unsteadiness and in- 
constancy; the bending of their ringers as to lay hold of something, by 
rapacity and avarice; the weakness of their knees, by fearfulness; their 
wrinkles, by indirect dealings and cunning, &c* 

And again, for echoes upon echoes, there is a rare instance thereof in a 
place which I will now exactly describe. It is some three or four miles 
from Paris, near a town called Pont-Charenton ; and some bird-bolt shot 
or more from the river of Sein. The room is a chapel or small church. 
The walls all standing, both at the sides and at the ends. Speaking at the 
one end, I did hear it return the voice thirteen several times, (a) 

There are certain letters that an echo will hardly express ; as S for one, 
especially being principal in a word. I remember well, that when I went 
to the echo at Pont-Charenton, there was an old Parisian, that took it to be 
work of spirits, and of good spirits. For, said he, call " Satan," and the 
echo will not deliver back the devil's name ; but will say, " va t'en;" which 
is as much in French as "apage," or avoid. And thereby I did hap to 
find, that an echo would not return an S, being but a hissing and an in- 
terior sound, (b) 

So too the nature of imagination continued to interest him. In the Sylva, 
art. 986, (c) he says, the relations touching the force of imagination and 
the secret instincts of nature are so uncertain, as they require a great deal of 
examination ere we conclude upon them. I would have it first throughly 
inquired, whether there be any secret passages of sympathy between persons 
of near blood ; as parents, children, brothers, sisters, nurse-children, husbands, 
wives, &c. There be many reports in history, that upon the death of persons 
of such nearness, men have had an inward feeling of it. I myself remember, 
that being in Paris, and my father dying in London, two or three days before 
my father's death I had a dream, which I told to divers English gentlemen, 
that my father's house in the country was plastered all over with black 
mortar. 



* See vol. xiv. of this ed. p. 408. 

(a) Sylva, art. 249, vol. iv. of this edition, p. 128. 

(b) Sylva, art. 251, vol. iv. of this edition, p. 129. 

(c) Vol. iv. of this edition, p. 528. 



XIX 



CHAPTER II. 

FROM THE DEATH OF HIS FATHER TILL HE ENGAGED 
IN ACTIVE LIFE. 1580 to 1590. 

Discovering, upon his arrival in England, that, by the 1580. 
sudden death of his father, he was left without a sufficient -&t. 20. 
provision to justify him in devoting his life to contem- 
plation, (a) it became necessary for him to select some 
pursuit for his support, " to think how to live, instead of 
living only to think." (c) 

Law and Politics were the two roads open before him ; 
in both his family had attained opulence and honor. Law, 
the dry and thorny study of law, had but little attraction 
for his discursive and imaginative mind. With the hope, 
therefore, that, under the protection of his political friends, 
and the Queen's remembrance of his father, and notice of 
him when a child, he might escape from the mental slavery 
of delving in this laborious profession, he made a great 
effort to secure some small competence, by applying to 
Lord Burleigh to recommend him to the queen, and inter- 
ceding with Lady Burleigh to urge his suit with his uncle, (d) 



(a) Rawley Biog. Brit. 

(c) This is an expression of his own, I forget where. 

(d) My singular good Lord, 

My humble duty remembered, and my humble thanks presented for 
your lordship's favour and countenance, which it pleased your lordship, at 
my being with you, to vouchsafe me, above my degree and desert : My 



XX LIFE OF BACON. 

But his application was unsuccessful ; the queen and the 
lord treasurer, distinguished as they were for penetration 
into character, being little disposed to encourage him to 



letter hath no further errand but to commend unto your lordship the 
remembrance of my suit, which then I moved unto you ; whereof it also 
pleased your lordship to give me good hearing, so far forth as to promise to 
tender it unto her majesty, and withal to add, in the behalf of it, that which 
I may better deliver by letter than by speech ; which is, that although it 
must be confessed that the request is rare and unaccustomed, yet if it be 
observed how few there be which fall in with the study of the common 
laws, either being well left or friended, or at their own free election, or 
forsaking likely success in other studies of more delight, and no less prefer- 
ment, or setting hand thereunto early, without waste of years ; upon such 
survey made, it may be my case may not seem ordinary, no more than my 
suit, and so more beseeming unto it. As I forced myself to say this in 
excuse of my motion, lest it should appear unto your lordship altogether 
indiscreet and unadvised, so my hope to obtain it resteth only upon your 
lordship's good affection toward, me, and grace with her majesty, who, 
methinks, needeth never to call for the experience of the thing, where she 
hath so great and so good of the person which recommendeth it. According 
to whicli trust of mine, if it may please your lordship both herein and else 
where to be my patron, and to make account of me, as one in whose well- 
doing your lordship hath interest, albeit, indeed, your lordship hath had 
place to benefit many, and wisdom to make due choice of lighting places 
for your goodness, yet do I not fear any of your lordship's former experi- 
ences for staying my thankfulness borne in art, howsoever God's good 
pleasure shall enable me or disable me, outwardly, to make proof thereof; 
for I cannot account your lordship's service distinct from that which I to 
God and my prince ; the performance whereof to best proof and purpose is 
the meeting point and rendezvous of all my thoughts. Thus I take my 
leave of your lordship, in humble manner, committing you, as daily in my 
prayers, so, likewise, at this present, to the merciful protection of the 
Almighty. 

Your most dutiful and bounden Nephew, 
From Grey's Inn, B. Fra. 

this 16th of September, 1580. 

To Lady Burghley, to speak for him to her Lord. 

My singular good Lady, 
I was as ready to shew myself mindful of my duty, by waiting on your 
ladyship, at your being in town, as now by writing, had I not feared lest 



STUDENT IN GRAY S INN. XXI 

rely upon others rather than upon himself, and to venture 
on the quicksands of politics, instead of the certain pro- 
fession of the law, in which the queen had, when he was 
a child, predicted that he would one day be " her Lord 
Keeper.'^) 

To law, therefore, he was reluctantly obliged to devote 
himself, and, as it seems, in the year 1580, he was admitted 
a student of Gray's Inn, of which society his father had 
for many years been an illustrious member, (e) 

Having engaged in this profession, he, as was to be 
expected, encountered and subdued the difficulties and 
obscurities of the science in which he was doomed to labour, 
and in which, he, afterwards, was so eminently distinguished, 
not only by his professional exertions and honours, but by 
his various valuable works upon different practical parts of 

your ladyship's short stay, and quick return might well spare me, that came 
of no earnest errand. I am not yet greatly perfect in ceremonies of court, 
whereof, I know, your ladyship knoweth both the right use, and true value. 
My thankful and serviceable mind shall be always like itself, howsoever it 
vary from the common disguising. Your ladyship is wise, and of good 
nature to discern from what mind every action proceedeth, and to esteem 
of it accordingly. This is all the message which my letter hath at this time 
to deliver, unless it please your ladyship farther to give me leave to make 
this request unto you, that it would please your good ladyship, in your 
letters, wherewith you visit my good lord, to vouchsafe the mention and 
recommendation of my suit; wherein your ladyship shall bind me more 
unto you than I can look ever to be able sufficiently to acknowledge. Thus 
in humble manner, I take my leave of your ladyship, committing you, as 
daily in my prayers, so, likewise, at this present, to the merciful providence 
of the Almighty. 

Your Ladyship's most dutiful and bounden nephew, 
From Grey's Inn, B. Fra. 

this 16th of September, 1580. 

(d) See ante page 111. 

(e) The admission book at Gray's Inn begins in the year 1580; but the 
first four pages have been torn out. Bacon's name, however, appears in 
the list of members of the society, in the year 1581 : the book abounds 
with Lord Bacon's Autographs. 



XX11 LIFE OF BACON. 

the law, (a) and upon the improvement of the science by- 
exploring the principles of universal justice, the laws of 
law. (b) 

Extensive as were his legal researches, and great as was 
his legal knowledge, law was, however, but an accessory, 
not a principal study, (c) It was not to be expected that 
his mind should confine its researches within the narrow 
and perplexed study of precedents and authorities. He 
contracted his sight, when necessary, to the study of the 
law, but he dilated it to the whole circle of science, and 
continued his meditations upon his immortal work, which 
he had projected when in the university, (d) 

This course of legal and philosophical research was 
accompanied with such sweetness and affability of deport- 
ment, that he gained the affections of the whole society, 



(a) See note R at the end, and note C C. 

(b) See note S at the end. 

(c) Contemplation feels no hunger, nor is sensible of any thirst, but of 
that after knowledge. How frequent and exalted a pleasure did David 
find from his meditation in the divine law ? all the day long it was the 
theme of his thoughts : The affairs of state, the government of his kingdom, 
might indeed employ, but it was this only that refreshed his mind. How 
short of this are the delights of the epicure ? how vastly disproportionate 
are the pleasures of the eating and of the thinking man ? indeed as different 
as the silence of an Archimedes in the study of a problem, and the stillness 
of a sow at her wash. — South. 

Being returned from travel, he applied himself to the study of the 
common-law, which he took upon him to be his profession. Notwith- 
standing that he professed the law for his livelihood and subsistence, yet 
his heart and affection was more carried after the affairs and places of state ; 
for which, if the majesty royal then had been pleased, he was most fit. 
The narrowness of his circumstances obliged him to think of some profession 
for a subsistence ; and he applied himself, more through necessity than 
choice, to the study of the common law, in which he obtained to great 
excellence, though he made that (as himself said) but as an accessory, and 
not his principal study. — Rawley. See note S at the end. 

(d) See note I at the end. 



QUEEN S COUNSEL. XX1U 

and the kindness he experienced was not lost upon him. 
He assisted in their festivities ; he beautified their spacious 
garden, and raised an elegant structure, known for many 
years after his death, as " The Lord Bacon's Lodgings," in 
which at intervals he resided till his death, (b) 

When he was only twenty-six years of age, he was 1586. 
promoted to the bench ; (c) in his twenty-eighth year he iEt 26, 
was elected lent reader ; (d) and the 42nd of Elizabeth he 
was appointed double reader. 

His agreeable occupations, and extensive views of science, 
during his residence in Gray's Inn, did not check his 
professional exertions. In the year 1586, he applied to 
the lord treasurer to be called within the bar;(«) and in 

(b) See note T at the end. 

(c) See note V at the end. 

(d) Dugdale, in his account of Bacon, says, in 30th Elizabeth, (being 
then but twenty-eight years of age) the honorable society of Gray's Inn 
chose him for their lent reader. Orig. p. 295. 

(a) In the time of Lord Bacon there was a distinction between outer and 
inner barristers. By the following letter in 1586, it will appear that he 
applied to the lord treasurer that he might be called within bars. 
To the Right Honorable the Lord Treasurer.* 
My very good Lord, 

I take it as an undoubted sign of your lordship's favour unto me that, 
being hardly informed of me, you took occasion rather of good advice than 
of evil opinion thereby. And if your lordship had grounded only upon the 
said information of theirs, I might and would truly have upholden that few 
of the matters were justly objected ; as the very circumstances do induce, 
in that they were delivered by men that did misaffect me, and, besides, were 
to give colour to their own doings. But because your lordship did mingle 
therewith both a late motion of mine own, and somewhat which you had 
otherwise heard, I know it to be my duty (and so do I stand affected,) 
rather to prove your lordship's admonition effectual in my doings hereafter, 
than causeless by excusing what is past. And yet (with your lordship's 
pardon humbly asked) it may please you to remember, that I did endeavour 
to set forth that said motion in such sort as it might breed no harder effect 
than a denial. And I protest simply before God, that I sought therein an 

* Lands. MS. li. art. 5. Orig. 



XXIV LIFE OF BACON. 

his thirtieth year was sworn queen's counsel learned extra- 
ordinary, (a) an honor which until that time, had never 
been conferred upon any member of the profession. 



ease in coming within bars, and not any extraordinary or singular note of 
favour. And for that your lordship may otherwise have heard of me, it 
shall make me more wary and circumspect in carriage of myself; indeed I 
find in my simple observation, that they which live as it were in umbra and 
not in public or frequent action, how moderately and modestly soever they 
behave themselves, yet labor ant invidia ; I find also that such persons as 
are of nature bashful (as myself is), whereby they want that plausible 
familiarity which others have, are often mistaken for proud. But once I 
know well, and I most humbly beseech your lordship to believe, that 
arrogancy and overweening is so far from my nature, as if I think well of 
myself in any thing it is in this, that I am free from that vice. And I hope 
upon this your lordship's speech, I have entered into those considerations, 
as my behaviour shall no more deliver me for other than I am. And so 
wishing unto your lordship all honour, and to myself continuance of your 
good opinion, with mind and means to deserve it, I humbly take my leave. 
Your Lordship's most bounden Nephew, 
Grey's Inn, Fr. Bacon. 

this 6th of May, 1586. 

(a) Rawley, in his life, says, he was after a while, sworn to the queen's 
counsel learned extraordinary ; a grace, if I err not, scarce known before. 
" He was counsel learned extraordinary to his Majesty, as he had been to 
Queen Elizabeth." Extract from Biographia Britannica, vol. I. page 373. 
— He distinguished himself no less in his practice, which was very con- 
siderable, and after discharging the office of reader at Grays Inn, which he 
did, in 1588, when in the twenty-sixth year of his age, he was become so 
considerable, that the queen who never over valued any man's abilities, 
thought fit to call him to her service in a way which did him very great 
honour, by appointing him her council learned in the law extraordinary : 
by which, though she contributed abundantly to his reputation, yet she 
added but very little to his fortune, as indeed in this respect he was never 
much indebted to her majesty, how much soever he might be in all others. 
He, in his apology respecting Lord Essex, says, " They sent for us of the 
learned council." 



XXV 



CHAPTER III. 

FROM HIS ENTRANCE INTO ACTIVE LIFE TILL HIS 
DISAPPOINTMENT AS SOLICITOR, 1590 to 1596. 

He thus entered on public life, submitting, as a lawyer and 1590 to 
a statesman, to worldly occupations and the pursuit of ^ 30 
worldly honours, that, sooner or later, he might escape 
into the calm regions of philosophy. 

At this period the court was divided into two parties : 
at the head of the one were the two Cecils ; of the other, 
the Earl of Leicester, and afterwards, his son-in-law, the 
Earl of Essex. 

To the Cecils Bacon was allied. He was the nephew of 
Lord Burleigh, and first cousin to Sir Robert Cecil, the 
principal secretary of state ; but, connected as he was to 
the Cecils by blood, his affections were with Essex. Gene- 
rous, ardent, and highly cultivated, with all the romantic 
enthusiasm of chivalry, and all the graces and accom- 
plishments of a court, Essex was formed to gain partizans, 
and attach friends. Attracted by his mind and character, 
Bacon could have but little sympathy with Burleigh, who 
thought £100. an extravagant gratuity to the author of 
the Fairy Queen, which he was pleased to term an " old 
song," (b) and, probably deemed the listeners to such songs 
little better than idle dreamers. There was much grave 
learning and much pedantry at court, but literature of the 
lighter sort was regarded with coldness, and philosophy 

(b) See note X at the end. 



XXVI LIFE OF BACON. 

with suspicion : instead, therefore, of uniting himself to the 
party in power, he not only formed an early friendship 
himself with Essex, but attached to his service his brother 
Anthony, who had returned from abroad, with a great repu- 
tation for ability and a knowledge of foreign affairs, (c) 
1591. This intimacy could not fail to excite the jealousy of 
JEt. 31. Lord Burleigh; and, in after life, Bacon was himself 
sensible that he had acted unwisely, and that his noble 
kinsmen had some right to complain of the readiness with 
which he and his brother had embraced the views of their 
powerful rival, (d) But, attached as he was to Essex, 
Bacon was not so imprudent as to neglect an application 
to them whenever opportunity offered to forward his inte- 
rests. In a letter written in the year 1591 to Lord Burleigh, 
in which he says that " thirty-one years is a great deal of 
sand in the hour-glass," he made another effort to extricate 
himself from the slavery of the law, by endeavouring to pro- 
cure some appointment at court ; that, " not being a man 
born under Sol that loveth honour, nor under Jupiter that 
loveth business, but wholly carried away by the contem- 
plative planet/' he might by that mean become a true 
pioneer in the deep mines of truth, (d) To these applications, 
the Cecils were not entirely inattentive ; for, although not 
influenced by any sympathy for genius, " for a speculative 
man indulging himself in philosophical reveries, and calcu- 
lated more to perplex than to promote public business," 
as he was represented by his cousin, Sir Robert Cecil, (f) 
they procured for him the reversion of the Registership of 
the Star Chamber, worth about £1600. a year, for which, 
modestly ascribing his success to the remembrance of his 
father's virtues, he immediately acknowledged his obliga- 
tion to the queen. This reversion, however, was not of 

(c) See note Y at the end. (d) See note Z at the end. 

(f) There is a letter containing this expression, but I cannot find it. 



MEMBER OF PARLIAMENT. XXVll 

any immediate value; for, not falling into possession till 
after the lapse of twenty years, he said that " it was like 
another man's ground buttailing upon his house, which 
might mend his prospect, but it did not fill his barns." (a) 

In the parliament which met on February 19, 1592, and 1592. 
which was chiefly called for consultation and preparation 
against the ambitious designs of the King of Spain, (b) 
Bacon sat as one of the knights for Middlesex, (c) On the 
25th of February, 1592, he, in his first speech, earnestly 
recommended the improvement of the law, an improvement 
which through life he availed himself of every opportunity 
to encourage (d) not only by his speeches, but by his works; 
in which he admonishes lawyers, that although they have 
a tendency to resist the progress of legal improvement, 
and are not the best improvers of law, it is their duty 
to visit and strengthen the roots and foundation of their 
science, productive of such blessings to themselves and to 
the community; and he submitted to the king that the 
most sacred trust to sovereign power consisted in the 
establishing good laws for the regulation of the kingdom, 
and as an example to the world. 

To assist in the improvement which he recommended, 
he, in after life, prepared a plan for a digest and amend- 
ment of the whole law, and particularly of the penal law 
of England, and a tract upon Universal Justice ; the one 
like a fruitful shower, profitable and good for the latitude 
of ground on which it falls, the other like the benefits of 
heaven, permanent and universal, (e) 

In another debate on the 7th of March, Bacon forcibly 
represented, as reasons for deferring for six years the pay- 
ment of the subsidies to which the house had consented, 

(a) See note Z Z at the end. (b) See note 2 Z at the end. 

(c) See note A A at the end. (d) See note B B at the end. 

(e) See note C C at the end. 



XXVlll LIFE OF BACON. 

the distresses of the people, the danger of raising public 
discontent, and the evil of making so bad a precedent 
against themselves and posterity, (a) With this speech the 
queen was much displeased, and caused her displeasure 
to be communicated to Bacon both by the Lord Treasurer 
and by the Lord Keeper. He heard them with the calmness 
of a philosopher, saying, that " he spoke in discharge of 
his conscience and duty to God, to the queen, and to his 
country; that he well knew the common beaten road to 
favour, and the impossibility that he who had selected a 
course of life ' estimate only by the few/ should be approved 
by the many." (b) He said this, not in anger, but in the 
consciousness of the dignity of his pursuits, and with the 
full knowledge of the doctrine and consequences both of 
concealment and revelation of opinion : of the time to speak 
and the time to be silent, (c) 

If, after this admonition, he was more cautious in the 
expression of his sentiments, he did not relax in his parlia- 
mentary exertions, or sacrifice the interests of the public 
at the foot of the throne. He spoke often, and always with 
such force and eloquence as to insure the attention of the 
house; and, though he spoke generally on the side of the 
court, he was regarded as the advocate of the people : a 
powerful advocate, according to his friend, Ben Jonson, 
who thus speaks of his parliamentary eloquence : " There 
happened in my time one noble speaker who was full of 
gravity in his speaking : his language, where he could spare 
or pass by a jest was nobly censorious. No man ever spake 
more neatly, more pressly, more weightily, or suffered less 
emptiness, less idleness in what he uttered : no member 
of his speech but consisted of its own graces. His hearers 
could not cough or look aside from him without loss : he 
commanded when he spoke, and had his judges angry and 

(a) See note D D at the end. {b) See note E E at the end. 

(c) See note F F at the end. 



SOLICITORSHIP. XXIX 

pleased at his devotion. No man had their affections more 
in his power : the fear of every man that heard him was 
lest he should make an end." 

It would have been fortunate for society, if this check 
had impressed upon his mind the vanity of attempting to 
unite the scarcely reconcileable characters of the philoso- 
pher and the courtier. His high birth and elegant taste 
unfitted Bacon for the common walks of life, and by sur- 
rounding him with artificial wants, compelled him to exer- 
tions uncongenial to his nature : but the love of truth, of 
his country, and an undying spirit of improvement, ever 
in the train of knowledge, ill suited him for the tram- 
mels in which he was expected to move. Through the 
whole of his life he endeavoured to burst his bonds, and 
escape from law and politics, from mental slavery to intel- 
lectual liberty. Perhaps the charge of inconsistency, so 
often preferred against him, may be attributed to the vary- 
ing impulse of such opposite motives. # 

In the spring of 1594, (a) by the promotion of Sir Edward 
Coke to the office of Attorney General, the Solicitorship 1594. 
became vacant. This had been foreseen by Bacon, and, -&t. 34, 
from his near alliance to the Lord Treasurer; from the 
friendship of Lord Essex ; from the honourable testimony 
of the bar and of the bench ; from the protection he had a 
right to hope for from the Queen, for his father's sake; 
from the consciousness of his own merits and of the weak- 
ness of his competitors, Bacon could scarcely doubt of his 
success. He did not, however, rest in an idle security; 
for though, to use his own expression, he was " voiced 
with great expectation, and the wishes of all men," yet he 
strenuously applied to the Lord Keeper, to Lord Burleigh, 

* During this year he published a tract, containing observations upon a 
libel. See vol. v. of this edition, p. 384. 

(«) 10 April, Dug. Orig. 



XXX LIFE OF BACON. 

to Sir Robert Cecil, and to his noble friend Lord Essex, to 
further his suit. 

To the Lord Keeper Puckering he applied as to a lawyer, 
having no sympathy with his pursuits or value for his 
attainments, in the hope of preventing his opposition, rather 
than from any expectation of his support; (a) and he calcu- 
lated rightly upon the Lord Keeper's disposition towards 
him, for, either hurt by Bacon's manner, of which he 
appeared to have complained, (b) or from the usual anti- 
pathy of common minds to intellectual superiority, the 
Lord Keeper represented to the Queen that two lawyers, 
of the names of Brograve and B rath way te, were more 
meritorious candidates, (c) Of the conduct of the Lord 
Keeper he felt and spoke indignantly. " If," he says, " it 
please your lordship but to call to mind from whom I am 
descended, and by whom, next to God, her Majesty, and 
your own virtue, your lordship is ascended, I know you 
will have a compunction of mind to do me any wrong." (d) 

To Lord Burleigh he applied as to his relation and 
patron, and, as a motive to ensure his protection, he inti- 
mated his intention to devote himself to legal pursuits, an 
intimation likely to be of more efficacy to this statesman 
than the assurance that the completion of the Novum 
Organum depended upon his success : (e) and he formed 
a correct estimate of the Lord Treasurer, who strongly 
interceded with the Queen, and kindly communicated to 
Bacon the motives by which she was influenced against 

him. 00 

To Sir Robert Cecil he also applied, as to a kinsman ; 
and, during the course of his solicitation, having suspected 
that he had been bribed by his opponent, openly accused 

(a) See note H H at the end. (b) See note 1 1 at the end. 

(c) See note K K at the end. (d) See note LL at the end. 

(e) See note M M at the end. (/) See note N N at the end. 



S0L1CIT0RSHIP. XXXI 

him ; but, having discovered his error, he immediately ac- 
knowledged that his suspicions were unfounded, (a) He 
still, however, maintained that there had been treachery 
somewhere, and that a word the Queen had used against 
him had been put into her mouth by Sir Robert's mes- 
senger. 

Essex, with all the zeal of his noble and ardent nature, 
endeavoured to influence the Queen on behalf of his friend, 
by every power which he possessed over her affections and 
her understanding ; (b) availing himself of the most happy 
moments to address her, refuting all the reasons which she 
could adduce against his promotion, and representing the 
rejection of his suit as an injustice to the public, and a 
great unkindness to himself. Not content with these 
earnest solicitations, Essex applied to every person by 
whom the Queen was likely to be influenced. 

That Bacon had a powerful enemy was evinced not only 
by the whole of Elizabeth's conduct during this protracted 
suit, but by the anger with which she met the earnest 
pleadings of Essex ; by her perpetual refusals to come to 
any decision, and above all, by her remarkable expressions, 
that " Bacon had a great wit, and much learning, but that 
in law he could show to the uttermost of his knowledge, 
and was not deep." Essex was convinced that this enemy 
was the Lord Keeper, to whom he wrote, desiring " that 
the Lord Keeper would no longer consider him a suitor for 
Bacon, but for himself; that upon him would light the 
disgrace as well of the protraction as of the refusal of the 
suit; and complained with much bitterness of those who 
ought to be Bacon's friends, (c) 

(a) See note O O at the end. (6) See note P P at the end. 

(c) To the Right Honourable the Lord Keeper, S$c. — My very good 
Lord, The want of assistance from them which should be Mr. Fr. Bacon's 
friends, makes [me] the more industrious myself, and the more earnest in 



XXXll LIFE OF BACON. 

To the Queen, Bacon applied by a letter worthy of 
them both. He addressed her respectfully, but with a 
full consciousness that he deserved the appointment, and 
that he had not deserved the reprimand he had received 
from her Majesty, for the honest exercise of his duty in 
parliament. Apologizing for his boldness and plainness, 
he told the Queen, " that his mind turned upon other 
wheels than those of profit ; that he sought no great matter, 
but a place in his profession, often given to younger men ; 
that he had never sought her but by her own desire, and 
that he would not wrong himself by doing it at that time, 
when it might be thought he did it for profit ; and that if 
her majesty found other and abler men, he should be glad 
there was such choice of them, (a) This letter, according 
to the custom of the times, he accompanied by a present of 
a jewel, (f) When the Queen, with the usual property 
of royalty, not to forget, mentioned his speech in parlia- 
ment which yet rankled in her mind, (b) and with an 
antipathy, unworthy of her love of letters, said, " he was 
rather a man of study, than of practice and experience ;" 
he reminded her of his father, who was made solicitor of 
the Augmentation Office when he was only twenty-seven 
years old, and had never practised, and that Mr. Brograve, 



soliciting mine own friends. Upon me the labour must lie of his estab- 
lishment, and upon me the disgrace will light of his being refused. There- 
fore I pray your lordship, now account me not as a solicitor only of my 
friend's cause, but as a party interested in this ; and employ all your lord- 
ship's favour to me, or strength for me, in procuring a short and speedy 
end. For though I know it will never be carried any other way, yet I 
hold both my friend and myself disgraced by this protraction. More I 
would write, but that I know to so honourable and kind a friend, this 
which I have said is enough. And so I commend your lordship to God's 
best protection, resting, at your Lordship's commandment, — Essex. 
{a) See note Q Q at the end. (b) See note S S at the end. 

(/) See note RR at the end. 



SOLICITORSHIP. XXX1U 

who had been recommended by the Lord Keeper, was 
without practice, (a) 

This contest lasted from April 1594 till November 1595; 
and what at first was merely doubt and hesitation in the 
Queen's mind, became a struggle against the ascendency, 
which she was conscious Essex had obtained over her, as 
she more than once urged that " if either party were to 
give way it ought to be Essex; that his affection for 
Bacon should yield to her mislike. (7) Of this latent 
cause Essex became sensible, and said to Bacon, " I never 
found the Queen passionate against you till I was pas- 
sionate for you." (m) 

Such was the nature of this contest, which was so long 
protracted, that success could not compensate for the 
trouble of the pursuit ; of this, and of the difficulties of his 
situation, he bitterly complained. " To be," he said, " like 
a child following a bird, which when he is nearest flieth 
away and lighteth a little before, and then the child after 
it again. I am weary of it, as also of wearying my good 
friends." (n) 

On the 5th of November, 1596, (o) Mr. Serjeant Fleming 15 g 6 . 
was appointed Solicitor-General, to the surprise of the ^Et. 36. 
public, and the deep-felt mortification of Bacon, and of his Solicitor, 
patron and friend, Lord Essex. The mortification of Essex 
partook strongly of the extremes of his character; of the 
generous regard of wounded affection, and the bitter 
vexation of wounded pride: he complained that a man, 
every way worthy had "fared ill, because he had made 
him a mean and dependence;" but he did not rest 
here : he generously undertook the care of Bacon's future 

(a) See note TT at the end. 

(/) See note P P, letter beginning " I went yesterday." 
(m) See note P P, letter beginning " I have received.'' 
(n) See note V V at the end. (o) See Dug. Orig. Jud. 

VOL. XV. d 



XXXIV LIFE OF BACON. 

fortunes, and, by the gift of an estate, worth about £1800. 
at the beautiful village of Twickenham, endeavoured to 
remunerate him for his great loss of time and grievous 
disappointment, (a) 

How bitterly Bacon felt the disgrace of the Queen's re- 
jection is apparent by his own letter, where he says, that 
" rejected with such circumstances, he could no longer 
look upon his friends, and that he should travel, and hoped 
that her majesty would not be offended that, no longer 
able to endure the sun, he had fled into the shade." (b) 

His greatest annoyance during this contest had arisen 
from the interruption of thoughts generally devoted to 
higher things. After a short retirement, " where he once 
again enjoyed the blessings of contemplation in that sweet 
solitariness which collecteth the mind, as shutting the eyes 
does the sight," during which he seems to have invented 
an instrument resembling a barometer, (c) he resumed his 
usual habits of study, consoled by the consciousness of 
worth, which, though it may at first embitter defeat from 
a sense of injustice, never fails ultimately to mitigate dis- 
appointment, by ensuring the sympathy of the wise and 
the good. 

This cloud soon passed away; for, though Bacon had 
stooped to politics, his mind, when he resumed his natural 
position, was far above the agitation of disappointed am- 
bition. During his retirement he wrote to the Queen, 
expressing his submission to the providence of God, which 
he says findeth it expedient for me fi tolerate jugum in 
juventute mea;" and assuring her majesty that her service 
should not be injured by any want of his exertions. (d) His 
forbearance was not lost upon the Queen, who, satisfied 
with her victory, soon afterwards, with an expression of 

(a) See note W W at the end. (c) See note Y Y at the end. 

(b) See note X X at the end. (d) See note ZZ at the end. 



ELEMENTS OF LAW. XXXV 

kindness, employed him in her service : and some effort 
was made to create a new vacancy, by the advancement of 
Fleming, (a) 

During the contest, the University of Cambridge had 
conferred upon him the degree of master of arts, (b) and he 
had in the first throes of vexation declared his intention of 
retiring there, a resolution, which, unfortunately for phi- 
losophy, he did not put into practice, (x) 

In the year 1596 Bacon completed a valuable tract 1596. 
upon the elements and use of the common law. (c) It -&t. 36. 
consists in the first part of twenty-five legal maxims, (d) as f L aw 
specimens selected from three hundred, (e) in which he 
was desirous to establish in the science of law, as he was 
anxious to establish in all science, general truths for the 
diminution of individual labour, and the foundation of 
future discoveries : and, his opinion being, that general 
truths could be discovered only by an extensive collection 
of particulars, he proceeded in this work upon the plan 
suggested in his Novum Organum. (f) 

In the second part he explains the use of the law for 
the security of persons, reputation, and property ; which, 
with the greatest anxiety to advance freedom of thought 
and liberty of action, he well knew and always inculcated, 
was to be obtained only by the strength of the law re- 
straining and directing individual strength. (2) In Or- 
pheus's Theatre, he says, all beasts and birds assembled, 
and forgetting their several appetites, some of prey, some 
of game, some of quarrel, stood all sociably together, 
listening to the airs and accords of the harp ; the sound 

(a) See note 3 A at the end. (e) See note 3 E at the end. 

(6) See note 3 B at the end. (J') See note 3 F at the end. 

(c) See note 3 C at the end. (x) See note X X at the end. 

(d) See note 3 D at the end. 

(z) In societati civili, aut lex aut vis valet. Justitia Universalis. 






XXXVI LIFE OF BACON. 

whereof no sooner ceased, or was drowned by some louder 
noise, but every beast returned to his own nature ; wherein 
is aptly described the nature and condition of men : who 
are full of savage and unreclaimed desires of profit, of lust, 
of revenge, which as long as they give ear to precepts, to 
laws, to religion, sweetly touched with eloquence, and 
persuasion of books, of sermons, of harangues,- so long 
is society and peace maintained ; but if these instruments 
be silent, or sedition and tumult make them not audible, 
all things dissolve into anarchy and confusion/' 

His preface contains his favourite doctrine, that " there 
is a debt of obligation from every member of a profession 
to assist in improving the science in which he has success- 
fully practised, (a) and he dedicated his work to the Queen, 
as a sheaf and cluster of fruit of the good and favourable 
season enjoyed by the nation, from the influence of her 
happy government, by which the people were taught that 
part of the study of a good prince was to adorn and honour 
times of peace by the improvement of the laws. Although 
this tract was written in the year 1596, and although he 
was always a great admirer of Elizabeth, it was not pub- 
lished till after his death, (a) 

The exertions which had been made by Essex to obtain 
the solicitorship for his friend, and his generous anxiety 
to mitigate his disappointment, had united them by the 
strongest bonds of affection. 

In the summer of 1596, Essex was appointed to the 
command of an expedition against Spain ; and though he 
was much troubled during the embarkation of his troops, 
by the want of discipline in the soldiery, chiefly volunteers, 
and by the contentions of their officers, too equal to be 
easily commanded, yet he did not forget the interests of 
Bacon, but wrote from Plymouth to the new-placed lord 

(«) See note 3 G at the end. 



THE ESSAYS. XXXV11 

keeper, and to all his friends in power, strongly recom- 
mending him to their protection, (a) 

In the early part of the year 1597 his first publication 1597. 

appeared. It is a small 12mo. volume of Essays, (b) Re- ^ t# 37, 

Essays. 
lioious Meditations, and a Table of the Colours of Good 

and Evil. In his dedication to his loving and beloved 
brother, he states that he published to check the circula- 
tion of spurious copies, " like some owners of orchards, who 
gathered the fruit before it was ripe, to prevent stealing ;" 
and he expresses his conviction that there was nothing in 
the volume contrary, but rather medicinable to religion 
and manners, and his hope that the Essays would, to use 
his own words, " be like the late new halfpence, which, 
though the pieces were small, the silver was good." (b) 

The Essays, which are ten(e) in number, abound with 
condensed thought and practical wisdom, neatly, pressly, 
and weightily stated, (f) and, like all his early works, are 
simple, without imagery, (m) They are written in his favou- 
rite style of aphorisms, {m) although each essay is appa- 
rently a continued work ; (h) and without that love of 

(a) See note 3 H at the end. (b) See note 3 1 at the end. 

(e) 1. Of Study. 

2. Of Discourse. 

3. Of Ceremonies and Respect. 

4. Of Followers and Friends. 

5. Suitors. 

6. Of Expense. 

7. Of Regiment of Health. 

8. Of Honour and Reputation. 

9. Of Faction. 
10. Of Negociating. 

(f) See Ben Jonson's description of his speaking in parliament, ante, 
xxviii. 

(in) See note 3 K at the end. 

(//) The following is selected as a specimen from his first essay " Of 
Study :" 

IT Reade not to contradict, nor to believe, but to waigh and consider. 



XXXVlll L1F£ OF BACOX. 

antithesis and false glitter to which truth and justness of 
thought is frequently sacrificed by the writers of maxims. 

Another edition, with a translation of the Meditationes 
Sacrse, was published in the next year; and a third*in 
1612, when he was solicitor-general; and a fourth in 1625, 
the year before his death. 

The Essays in the subsequent editions are much aug- 
mented, according to his own words : " I always alter when 
I add, so that nothing is finished till all is finished," and 
they are adorned by happy and familiar illustration, as in 
the essay of " Wisdom for a Man's self," which concludes 
in the edition of 1625 with the following extract, not to be 
found in the previous edition : — " Wisdom for a man's self 
is in many branches thereof a depraved thing. It is the 
wisdom of rats, that will be sure to leave a house somewhat 
before it fall. It is the wisdom of the fox, that thrusts 
out the badger, who digged and made room for him. It is 
the wisdom of crocodiles, that shed tears when they would 
devour. But that which is specially to be noted is, that 
those which, as Cicero says of Pompey, are sui amantes 
sine rivali, are many times unfortunate. And whereas they 
have all their time sacrificed to themselves, they become 
in the end themselves sacrifices to the inconstancy of for- 
tune, whose wings they thought by their self-wisdom to 
have pinioned." 

So in the essay upon Adversity, on which he had deeply 
reflected, before the edition of 1625, when it first appeared, 
he says : " The virtue of prosperity is temperance, the 

% Some bookes are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few 
to be chewed and digested. That is, some bookes are to be read only in 
partes; others to be read but cursorily, and some few to be read wholly 
and with diligence and attention. 

1f Histories make men wise, poets wittie, the mathematicks subtle, 
natural philosophic deepe, moral, grave; logicke and rhetoricke able to 
contend. 



THE ESSAYS. XXXIX 

virtue of adversity is fortitude, which in morals is the more 
heroical virtue. Prosperity is the blessing of the Old 
Testament, adversity is the blessing of the New, which 
carrieth the greater benediction, and the clearer revelation 
of God's favour. Yet even in the Old Testament, if you 
listen to David's harp, you shall hear as many hearse-like 
airs as carols ; and the pencil of the Holy Ghost hath 
laboured more in describing the afflictions of Job than the 
felicities of Solomon. Prosperity is not without many fears 
and distastes; and adversity is not without comforts and 
hopes. We see in needleworks and embroideries, it is more 
pleasing to have a lively work upon a sad and solemn 
ground, than to have a dark and melancholy work upon a 
lightsome ground: judge, therefore, of the pleasure of the 
heart by the pleasure of the eye. Certainly virtue is like 
precious odours, most fragrant when they are incensed, or 
crushed : for prosperity doth best discover vice, but ad- 
versity doth best discover virtue." 

The essays were immediately translated into French and 
Italian, and into Latin by some of his friends, amongst 
whom were Hacket, Bishop of Litchfield, and his constant 
affectionate friend, Ben Jonson. (i) 

His own estimate of the value of this work is thus 
stated in his letter to the Bishop of Winchester : "As for 
my Essays, and some other particulars of that nature, I 
count them but as the recreations of my other studies, and 
in that manner purpose to continue them ; though I am 
not ignorant that these kind of writings would, with less 
pains and assiduity, perhaps yield more lustre and repu- 
tation to my name than the others I have in hand." 

Although it was not likely that such lustre and repu- 
tation would dazzle him, the admirer of Phocion, (k) who, 

(i) Tennison. See note(«), p. 226. (k) Apothegm. 30, vol. i. p. 356. 



xl 



LIFE OF BACON. 



when applauded, turned to one of his friends, and asked, 
"what have I said amiss?" although popular judgment 
was not likely to mislead him who concludes his observa- 
tions upon the objections to learning and the advantages 
of knowledge, by saying, " Nevertheless I do not pretend, 
and I know it will be impossible for me, by any pleading 
of mine, to reverse the judgment either of iEsop's cock, 
that preferred the barleycorn before the gem ; or of Midas, 
that being chosen judge between Apollo, president of the 
muses, and Pan, god of the flocks, judged for plenty; or 
of Paris, that judged for beauty and love against wisdom 
and power. For these things continue as they have been ; 
but so will that also continue whereupon learning hath ever 
relied, and which faileth not. ( Justificata est sapientia a 
filiis suis :'"(a) yet he seems to have undervalued this little 
work, which, for two centuries, has been favourably re- 
ceived by every lover of knowledge and of beauty, and is 
now so well appreciated, that a celebrated professor of our 
own times truly says : "The small volume to which he has 
given the title of " Essays," the best known and the most 
popular of all his works, is one of those where the supe- 
riority of his genius appears to the greatest advantage; 
the novelty and depth of his reflections often receiving a 
strong relief from the triteness of the subject. It may be 
read from beginning to end in a few hours, and yet after 
the twentieth perusal one seldom fails to remark in it some- 
thing overlooked before. This, indeed, is a characteristic 
of all Bacon's writings, and is only to be accounted for by 
the inexhaustible aliment they furnish to our own thoughts, 
and the sympathetic activity they impart to our torpid 
faculties." (b) 

During his life six or more editions, which seem to have 

(a) See vol. ii. p. 88. (b) Dugald Stewart. 



COLOURS OF GOOD AND EVIL. xll 

been pirated, were published ; and, after his death, two 
spurious essays " Of Death," and " Of a King," the only 
authentic posthumous essay being the fragment of an essay 
on Fame, which was published by his friend and chaplain, 
Dr. Rawley. 

The sacred meditations, which are twelve in number, (a) 
are in the first edition in Latin, and have been partly in- 
corporated into subsequent editions of the Essays, and into 
the Advancement of Learning, (fi) 

The Colours of Good and Evil are ten in number, and 
were afterwards inserted in the Advancement of Learn- 
ing, (c) in his tract on Rhetoric. 

Such was the nature of his first work, which was grate- 
fully received by his learned contemporaries, as the little 
cloud seen by the prophet, and welcomed as the harbinger 
of showers that would fertilise the whole country. 

While, in this year, the Earl of Essex was preparing for 1598. 
his voyage, Bacon communicated to him his intention of ^ 38 - 
making a proposal of marriage to the Lady Hatton, the m ^i^ e e . 
wealthy widow of Sir William Hatton, and daughter of Sir 
Thomas Cecil, and desired his lordship's interest in sup- 
port of his pretensions, trusting, he said, " that the beams 
of his lordship's pen might dissolve the coldness of his 

(a) Of the Works of God and Man. 
Of the Miracles of our Saviour. 

Of the Innocency of the Dove, and the Wisdom of the Serpent. 

Of the Exaltation of Charity. 

Of the Moderation of Cares. 

Of Earthly Hope. 

Of Hypocrites. 

Of Impostors. 

Of the several kinds of Imposture. 

Of Atheism. 

Of Heresies . 

Of the Church and the Scripture. 

(b) See note 3 L at the end. (c) See vol. ii. p. 212. 



xlii LIFE OF BACON. 

fortune." (a) Essex with his wonted zeal, warmly advocated 
the cause of his friend ; he wrote in the strongest terms to 
the father and mother of the lady, assuring them " that if 
Bacon's suit had been to his own sister or daughter, he 
would as confidently further it, as he now endeavoured to 
persuade them." Neither Bacon's merit, or the generous 
warmth of his noble patron touched the heart of the lady, 
who, fortunately for Bacon, afterwards became the wife of 
his great rival, Sir Edward Coke, (h) 

1598. I n this year he seems to have been in great pecuniary 
difficulties, (c) which, however they may have interrupted, 
did not prevent his studies; for, amidst his professional 
and political labours, he published a new edition of his 
Essays, (d) and composed a law tract, not published until 
some years after his death, entitled the History of the 
Alienation Office, (e) 

1599. i n the year 1599, the celebrated case of Perpetuities, 
* which had been argued many times at the bar of the King's 

Uses. Bench, was on account of its difficulty and great import- 
ance, ordered to be argued in the Exchequer Chamber 
before all the judges of England ;(f) and after a first argu- 
ment by Coke, Solicitor-General, a second argument was 
directed, and Bacon was selected to discharge this arduous 
duty, to which he seems to have given his whole mind ; 
and although Sir Edward Coke, in his report, states that 
he did not hear the arguments, the case is reported at 
great length, and the reasoning has not been lost, for the 



(a) See note 3 M at the end. 

(b) See note 3 N at the end. 

(c) See note 3 O at the end. 

(d) It differs from the edition of 1597 only in having the Meditation es 
Sacrse in English instead of Latin. 

(e) See note 3 P at the end. 
(/) 1 Coke, 121, p. 287. 



CASE OF PERPETUITIES. Xllll 

manuscript exists, (a) and seems to have been incorporated 
in his reading on the statute of uses to the society of 
Gray's Inn. 

He thus commences his address to the students : " I 
have chosen to read upon the Statute of Uses, a law 
whereupon the inheritances of this realm are tossed at 
this day, like a ship upon the sea, in such sort, that 
it is hard to say which bark will sink, and which will 
get to the haven; that is to say, what assurances will 
stand good, and what will not. Neither is this any lack 
or default in the pilots, the grave and learned judges; but 
the tides and currents of received error, and unwarranted 
and abusive experience have been so strong, as they were 
not able to keep a right course according to the law. 
Herein, though I could not be ignorant either of the 
difficulty of the matter, which he that taketh in hand 
shall soon find, or much less of my own unableness, which 
I had continual sense and feeling of; yet, because I had 
more means of absolution than the younger sort, and more 
leisure than the greater sort, I did think it not impossible 
to work some profitable effect ; the rather because where 
an inferior wit is bent and constant upon one subject, he 
shall many times, with patience and meditation, dissolve 
and undo many of the knots, which a greater wit, distracted 
with many matters, would rather cut in two than unknit : 
and, at the least, if my invention or judgment be too barren 
or too weak, yet by the benefit of other arts, I did hope to 
dispose or digest the authorities and opinions which are in 
cases of uses in such order and method, as they should take 
light one from another, though they took no light from me." 

He then proceeds in a luminous exposition of the sta- 
tute, of which a celebrated lawyer of our times, (b) says: 

(a) See note 3 Q at the end. (b) Mr. Ilargrave. 



XJ 



IV LIFE OF BACON, 



" Lord Bacon's reading on the Statute of Uses is a very- 
profound treatise on the subject, so far as it goes, and 
shows that he had the clearest conception of one of the 
most abstruse parts of our law. What might we not have 
expected from the hands of such a master, if his vast mind 
had not so embraced within its compass the whole field of 
science, as very much to detach him from his professional 
studies V\b) 

There is an observation of the same nature by a cele- 
brated professor in another department of science, Sir John 
Hawkins, who, in his History of Music, says, " Lord Bacon, 
in his Natural History has given a great variety of experi- 
ments touching music, that show him to have not been 
barely a philosopher, an inquirer into the phenomena of 
sound, but a master of the science of harmony, and very 
intimately acquainted with the precepts of musical compo- 
sition." And, in coincidence with his lordship's sentiments 
of harmony, he quotes the following passage : u The 
sweetest and best harmony is when every part or instru- 
ment is not heard by itself, but a conflation of them all, 
which requireth to stand some distance off, even as it is in 
the mixtures of perfumes, or the taking of the smells of 
several flowers in the air." (b) 

With these legal and literary occupations he continued 
without intermission his parliamentary exertions, there not 
having been during the latter part of the Queen's reign 
any debate in which he was not a distinguished speaker, 
or any important committee of which he was not an active 
member, (d) 
Ireland. Early in the year 1599 a large body of the Irish, denied 
1599. the protection of the laws, and hunted like wild beasts by 
an insolent soldiery, fled the neighbourhood of cities, shel- 

(b) See note 3 R at the end. (d) See note 3 S at the end. 



J£t. 39. 



ESSEX LORD LIEUTENANT. xlv 

tered themselves in their marshes and forests, and grew 
every da)/ more intractable and dangerous; it became 
necessary, therefore, that some vigorous measures should 
be adopted to restrain their excesses. 

A powerful army was raised, of which the command was 
intended by the Queen to be conferred upon Lord Mount- 
joy ; but Essex solicited an employment, which at once 
gratified his ambition and suited the ardour of his cha- 
racter, and which his enemies sought for him more zealously 
than his friends, foreseeing the loss of the Queen's favour, 
from the certainty of his absence from court, and the 
probable failure of his expedition. 

From the year 1596 till this period there had been some Difference 
interruption of the intimacy between Bacon and Essex, 
arising from the honest expression of his opinion of the 
unwise and unworthy use which Essex made of his power 
over the Queen. Notwithstanding the temporary estrange- 
ment which this difference of opinion occasioned, Essex 
was unwilling to accept this important command without 
consulting his intelligent friend. 

Bacon's narrative gives a striking picture of both parties. 
He says, ht . Sure I am (though I can arrogate nothing 
to myself but that I was a faithful remembrance to his 
lordship) that while I had most credit with him his fortune 
went on best. And yet in two main points we always 
directly and contradictorily differed, which I will mention 
to your lordship, because it giveth light to all that followed. 
The one was, I ever set this down, that the only course to 
be held with the Queen was by obsequiousness and observ- 
ance ; and I remember I would usually engage confidently, 
that if he would take that course constantly, and w T ith 
choice of good particulars to express it, the Queen would 
be brought in time to Assuerus' question, to ask, What 
should be done to the man that the king would honour ? 



XI VI LIFE OF BACON. 

meaning, that her goodness was without limit, where there 
was a true concurrence, which I knew in her nature to be 
true. My lord, on the other side, had a settled opinion, 
that the Queen could be brought to nothing but by a kind 
of necessity and authority; and I well remember, when by 
violent courses at any time he had got his will, he would 
ask me : Now sir, whose principles be true ? And I would 
again say to him : My lord, these courses be like to hot 
waters, they will help at a pang; but if you use them, you 
shall spoil the stomach, and you shall be fain still to make 
them stronger and stronger, and yet in the end they will 
lese their operation : with much other variety, wherewith 
I used to touch that string. Another point was, that I 
always vehemently dissuaded him from seeking greatness 
by a military dependence, or by a popular dependence, as 
that which would breed in the Queen jealousy, in himself 
presumption, and in the state perturbation; and I did 
usually compare them to Icarus' two wings which were 
joined on with wax, and would make him venture to soar 
too high, and then fail him at the height. And I would 
further say unto him : My Lord, stand upon two feet, and 
fly not upon two wings. The two feet are the two kinds 
of j ustice, commutative and distributive : use your great- 
ness for advancing of merit and virtue, and relieving wrongs 
and burdens, you shall need no other art or fineness : but 
he would tell me, that opinion came not from my mind, 
but from my robe. But this difference in two points so 
main and material, bred in process of time a discontinuance 
of privateness (as it is the manner of men seldom to com- 
municate where they think their courses not approved) 
between his lordship and myself; so as I was not called 
nor advised with for some year and a half before his lord- 
ship's going into Ireland, as in former time: yet never- 
theless, touching his going into Ireland, it pleased him 



ESSEX LORD LIEUTENANT. XlVIl 

expressly and in a set manner to desire mine opinion and 
counsel." (a) 

Thus consulted, Bacon, with prophetic wisdom, warned Dissuades 

Essex. 
him of the ruin that would inevitably result from his ac- 
ceptance of an appointment, attended not only with peculiar 
difficulties, which from habit and temper he was unfit to 
encounter, but also with the certain loss of the Queen's 
favour, from his absence, and the constant plotting of his 
enemies. Essex heard this advice, urged as it was, with 
an anxiety almost parental, as advice is generally heard 
when opposed to strong passion. It was totally disregarded. 
It is but ustice to Bacon to hear his own words. He says : 
" I did not only dissuade, but protest against his going, 
telling him with as much vehemency and asseveration as I 
could, that absence in that kind would exulcerate the 
Queen's mind, whereby it would not be possible for him 
to carry himself so as to give her sufficient contentment ; 
nor for her to carry herself so as to give him sufficient 
countenance, which would be ill for her, ill for him, and ill 
for the state. And because I would omit no argument, I 
remember I stood also upon the difficulty of the action : 
many other reasons I used, so as I am sure I never in any 
thing in my lifetime dealt with him in like earnestness by 
speech, by writing, and by all the means I could devise. 
For I did as plainly see his overthrow chained, as it were 
by destiny to that journey, as it is possible for a man to 
ground a judgment upon future contingents. But my lord, 
howsoever his ear was open, yet his heart and resolution 
was shut against that advice, whereby his ruin might have 
been prevented." (a) 

It did not require Bacon's sagacity to foresee these sad 
consequences. Elizabeth had given an unwilling assent 

(a) Bacon's Apology, see vol. vi. p. 245. 



X1V111 LIFE OF BACOiV. 

to the appointment, and, though accustomed to yield to 
the vehement demands of her favorite, was neither blind to 
his faults, or slow in remembering them, when his absence 
gave her time for reflection ; but she shared with all mon- 
archs the common wish to obtain the disinterested affection 
of those whom she distinguished with her favour, (a) 

By the loss of Leicester, and the recent death of Bur- 
leigh, she was left in the decline of her life " in a solitude 
of friends/' when Essex, of a character more congenial 
to the Queen than either of those noblemen, became, 
between twenty and thirty years of age, a candidate for 
court favour. Well read, highly born, accomplished, and 
imbued with the romantic chivalry of the times, he amused 
her by his gaiety, and flattered her by his gallantry ; the 
rash ingenuousness of his temper gave an air of sincerity 
to all his words and actions, while strength of will, and a 
daring and lofty spirit like her own, lessened the distance 
between them, and completed the ascendancy which he 
gained over her affections ; an ascendency which, even if 
the Queen had not been surrounded by his rivals and 
enemies, could not but be diminished by his absence. 
1599. In March, 1599, he was appointed lord lieutenant, and, 

&*• 39 - attended with the flower of the nobility and the acclama- 
lieutenant. tions of the people, he quitted London, and in the latter 
end of the month arrived at Dublin. From this time until 
his return, the whole of his actions were marked by a 
strong determination that his will should be paramount to 
that of the Queen. 

The first indication of his struggle for power was the 
appointment, against the express wish of the Queen, of 
his friend, Lord Southampton, to be general of the horse, 
which he was ordered to rescind. Essex, who had much 
personal courage, and who would have distinguished him- 

(a) See note 3 T at the end. 



Essex's imprudence. xlix 

self at a tournament, or a passage at arms, being totally 
unfit to manage an expedition requiring all the skill, expe- 
rience, and patient endurance of a veteran soldier, the whole 
campaign was a series of rash enterprize, neglected oppor- 
tunity, and relaxed discipline, involving himself and his 
country in defeat and disgrace. By this ill-advised con- 
duct he so completely aliened the minds of his soldiers, 
that they were put to flight by an inferior number of the 
enemy ; at which Essex was so much enraged, that he 
cashiered all the officers, and decimated the men. 

Bacon, seeing how truly he had prophesied, and ob- 1597. 
serving the pain felt by the Queen, availed himself of every Mt. 37. 

opportunity to prevent his ruin in her affections. " After Interces- 
,,,.„, T , , sion with 

my lord s going, he says, " 1 saw then how true a prophet Queen. 

I was, in regard of the evident alteration which naturally 
succeeded in the Queen's mind, and thereupon I was still 
in watch to find the best occasion that in the weakness of 
my power I could either take or minister, to pull him out 
of the fire if it had been possible ; and not long after, me 
thought I saw some overture thereof, which I apprehended 
readily, a particularity I think be known to very few, and 
the which I do the rather relate unto your lordship, because 
I hear it should be talked, that while my lord was in Ire- 
land I revealed some matters against him, or I cannot tell 
what ; which if it were not a mere slander as the rest is, 
but had any, though never so little colour, was surely upon 
this occasion. The Queen one day at Nonsuch, a little 
(as I remember) before CufFes coming over, I attending on 
her, showed a passionate distaste of my lord's proceedings 
in Ireland, as if they were unfortunate, without judgment, 
contemptuous, and not without some private end of his 
own, and all that might be, and was pleased, as she spake 
of it to many that she trusted least, so to fall into the like 
speech with me; whereupon I who was still awake, and 
vol. xv. e 



1 LIFE OF BACON. 

true to my grounds which I thought surest for my lord's 
good, said to this effect : Madam, I know not the particu- 
lars of estate, and I know this, that princes' actions must 
have no abrupt periods or conclusions, but otherwise I 
would think, that if you had my lord of Essex here with a 
white staff in his hand, as my lord of Leicester had, and 
continued him still about you for society to yourself, and 
for an honour and ornament to your attendance and court 
in the eyes of your people, and in the eyes of foreign 
ambassadors, then were he in his right element; for, to dis- 
content him as you do, and yet to put arms and power 
into his hands, may be a kind of temptation to make him 
prove cumbersome and unruly. And therefore if you would 
imponere bonam clausulam, and send for him, and satisfy 
him with honour near you, if your affairs, which (as I have 
said) I am not acquainted with, will permit it, I think 
were the best way." (a) 
Return of These kind exertions for his friend were, however, 
wholly defeated by the haughtiness and imprudence of 
Essex, who, to the just remonstrances of the Queen, gave 
no other answers than peevish complaints of his enemies ; 
and, to the astonishment of all persons, he, without her 
permission, returned to England, arrived before any person 
could be apprised of his intention, and, the Queen not being 
in London, he, without stopping to change his dress, or to 
take any refreshment, proceeded to Nonsuch, where the 
court was held. Travel-stained as he was, he sought the 
Queen in her chamber, and found her newly risen, with 
her hair about her face. He kneeled to her, and kissed her 
hands. Elizabeth, taken by surprise, gave way to all her 
partiality for him, and to the pleasure she always had in 
his company. He left her presence well pleased with his 
reception, and thanked God, though he had suffered much 

{a) Bacon's Apology, vol. vi. p. 254. 



Essex. 



Essex's return. 11 

trouble and storm abroad, that he found a sweet calm at 
home. He had another conference for an hour with the 
Queen before midday, from which he returned well con- 
tented with his future prospects, receiving the visits of the 
whole court, Cecil and his party excepted, (b) 

During the day the Queen saw her ministers, (c) After Confine- 
dinner he found her much changed : she received him ™ ent °; 

& Essex to 

coldly, and appointed the lords to hear him in council that his cham- 
very afternoon. After sitting an hour, they adjourned the 
court to a full council on the next day; but, between eleven 
and twelve at night, an order came from the Queen that 
Essex should keep his chamber, (d) 

On the next day the lords met in council, and presented To York 
a favourable report to the Queen, who said she would H° use - 
pause and consider it, Essex still continuing captive in his 
chamber, (e) from whence the Queen ordered him to be 
committed into custody, lest, having his liberty, he might 
be far withdrawn from his duty through the corrupt coun- 
sels of turbulent men, not however to any prison, lest she 
might seem to destroy all hope of her ancient favor, but to 
the Lord Keeper's, at York House, to which in the after- 
noon he was taken from Nonsuch, (f) 

Bacon's steady friendship again manifested itself. He Bacon's 
wrote to Essex the moment he heard of his arrival, and in stead y 
an interview between them, he urged the advice which he 
had communicated in his letter. This letter and advice 
are fortunately preserved. In his letter he says : My Lord, 
conceiving that your lordship came now up in the person 
of a good servant to see your sovereign mistress, which 

(6) See Sydney Papers, 117 — 127. Camden and Birch. 

(c) See Sydney Papers. Michaelmas day at noon, (vol. ii. p. 127) 
containing the account of the different persons who hastened to court on 
that day. t 

(d) Sydney Papers, vol. ii. p. 129. 

(e) Sydney Papers, 130—133 (/) Sydney Papers, 131-9. 



Hi LIFE OF BACON. 

kind of compliments are many times " instar magnorum 
meritorum ;" and therefore that it would be hard for me to 
find you, I have committed to this poor paper the humble 
salutations of him that is more yours than any man's, and 
more yours than any man. To these salutations, I add a 
due and joyful gratulation, confessing that your lordship, 
in your last conference with me before your journey, spake 
not in vain, God making it good, that you trusted we 
should say, " quis putasset?" Which, as it is found true 
in a happy sense, so I wish you do not find another " quis 
putasset," in the manner of taking this so great a service ; 
but I hope it is as he said, " nubecula est cito transibit ;" 
and that your lordship's wisdom and obsequious circum- 
spection and patience will turn all to the best. So referring 
all to some time that I may attend you, I commit you to 
God's best preservation. 

And his advice is thus stated by Bacon : " Well, the next 
news that I heard, was that my lord was come over, and 
that he was committed to his chamber for leaving Ireland 
without the Queen's licence : this was at Nonsuch, where 
(as my duty was) I came to his lordship, and talked with 
him privately about a quarter of an hour, and he asked mine 
opinion of the course that was taken with him; I told him : 
My lord, nubecula est, cito transibit : it is but a mist ; but 
shall I tell your lordship it is as mists are, if it go upwards, it 
may perhaps cause a shower, if downwards it will clear up. 
And therefore, good my lord, carry it so, as you take away 
by all means all umbrages and distastes from the Queen, 
and especially if I were worthy to advise you, (as I have 
been by yourself thought, and now your question imports 
the continuance of that opinion) observe three points : first, 
make not this cessation or peace, which is concluded with 
Tyrone, as a service wherein you glory, but as a shuffling 
up of a prosecution which was not very fortunate. Next, 
represent not to the Queen any necessity of estate, whereby, 



COMMITTAL TO LORD KEEPER. liii 

as by a coercion or wrench, she should think herself enforced 
to send you back into Ireland ; but leave it to her. Thirdly, 
seek access, importune, opportune, seriously, sportingly, 
every way. I remember my lord was willing to hear me, 
but spake very few words, and shaked his head sometimes, 
as if he thought I was in the wrong; but sure I am, he 
did just contrary in every one of these three points." (a) 

After his committal to the Lord Keeper's there was great Private in 
fluctuation of opinion with respect to his probable fate. in g t ° r 
On one day the hope of his restoration to favour prevailed; Chamber. 
on the next, as the Queen, by brooding over the miscon- 
duct of Essex, by additional accounts of the consequences 
of his errors in Ireland, by turbulent speeches and seditious 
pamphlets, was much exasperated, his ruin was predicted. 
Pamphlets were circulated and suppressed ; there were 
various conferences at York House between the different 
statesmen and Essex ; and it was ultimately determined 
that the matter should be investigated, not by public accu- 
sation, but by a declaration in the Star Chamber, in the 
absence of Essex, of the nature of his misconduct. Such 
was the result of the Queen's conflict between public 
opinion and her affection for Essex, {b) 

In this perplexity she consulted Bacon, who from this, Bacon ob- 
and from any proceeding, earnestly dissuaded the Queen, J ects - 
and warned her that, from the popularity of Essex and 
this unusual mode of accusation, it would be said that 
justice had her balance taken from her; and that, instead of 
promoting, it would interrupt the public tranquillity. She 
heard and was offended with his advice, and acted in 
direct opposition to it. At an assembly of privy councellors, A. D. 
of judges, and of statesmen, held on the 30th of November, 1597 - 
they declared, without his being heard in his defence, the 
nature of Essex's misconduct: a proceeding which, as 

(a) Bacon's Apology, vol.vi. p. 254. (6) Sydney Papers, 131 — 139. 



Hv LIFE OF BACON. 

Bacon foretold, and which the Queen too late acknowledged, 
aggravated the public discontent. At this assembly Bacon 
was not present, which, when his absence was mentioned 
by the Queen, he excused by indisposition, (g) 

Bacon's account of this proceeding is as follows : " Im- 
mediately after the Queen had thought of a course (which 
was also executed) to have somewhat published in the 
Star Chamber, for the satisfaction of the world, touching 
my lord of Essex his restraint, and my lord of Essex not 
to be called to it, but occasion to be taken by reason of 
some libels then dispersed; which when her majesty pro- 
pounded unto me, I was utterly against it, and told her 
plainly that the people would say, that my lord was 
wounded upon his back, and that justice had her balance 
taken from her, which ever consisted of an accusation and 
defence, with many other quick and significant terms to 
that purpose ; insomuch that I remember I said, that my 
lord in foro famed was too hard for her ; and therefore 
wished her, as I had done before, to wrap it up privately : 
and certainly I offended her at that time, which was rare 
with me ; for I call to mind that both the Christmas, Lent, 
and Easter Term following, though I came divers times to 
her upon law business, yet me thought her face and manner 
was not so clear and open to me, as it was at the first. But 
towards the end of Easter term, her majesty brake with 
me, and told me that she had found my words true, for 
that the proceeding in the Star Chamber had done no 
good, but rathel* kindled factious bruits, as she termed 
them, than quenched them." (h) 

If the partizans of Essex had acted with the cautious 
wisdom of Bacon, the Queen's affections undisturbed 
would have run kindly into their old channel, but his 

(g) Bacon's Apology, vol. vi. p. 262. 
(/<) Sydney Papers, vol. ii. p. 138— 164. 



PUBLICATION OF ESSEX'S APOLOGIE. lv 

followers, by new seditious discourses and offensive pla- 
cards, never gave her indignation time to cool. About 
Christmas, Essex from agitation of mind, and protracted 
confinement, fell into a dangerous illness, and the Queen 
sent to him some kind messages by her own physician, 
but his enemies persuaded her that his illness was partly 
feigned; and when at last his near approach to death 
softened the Queen in his favour, the injudicious expres- 
sions of those divines who publicly prayed for him, amount- 
ing to sedition, entirely hardened her heart against him. 
Upon the earl's recovery, and after some months patient 
endurance on his part, the Queen desired to restore him to 
favor; and on the 19th of March Essex was removed to 
his own house, in the custody of Sir Richard Barkley. (») 

About three years previous to his accepting the command Apology 
in Ireland, Essex published a tract, entitled " An Apologie or ss( 
of the Earl of Essex against (k) those which jealously and 
maliciously tax him to be the hinderer of the peace and 
quiet of his country." This tract originated, as it seems, 
in an admonition of Bacon's, which he thus states: " I re- 
member, upon his voyage to the islands, I saw every spring 
put forth such actions of charge and provocation, that I 
said to him, my lord, when I came first unto you I took 
you for a physician that desired to cure the diseases of the 
state ; but now I doubt you will be like those physicians 
which can be content to keep their patients low, because 
they would always be in request: which plainness he 
nevertheless took very well, as he had an excellent ear, 
and was patientissimus veri, and assured me the case of the 
realm required it; and I think this speech of mine, and 
the like renewed afterwards, pricked him to write that 
apology which is in many men's hands." (/) 

(f) Sydney Papers, 149. ' (k) See note 3 V at the end. 

(/) Bacon's Apology, vol. vi. p. 254. 



lvi LIFE OF BACON. 

Essex had scarcely been liberated, when the Apology 
was reprinted by some injudicious partisan. The Queen, 
greatly exasperated, ordered two of the printers to be im- 
prisoned, and meditated proceedings against Essex; but 
he having written to the Archbishop of Canterbury and 
various of his friends, and having ordered the publishers 
to suppress the work, the storm was averted, (/) The spirit 
in which the republication of this tract originated extended 
to the circulation of other libels, (m) so reflecting upon the 
conduct of the Queen, that she said the subject should be 
publicly examined ; and, acknowledging the foresight of 
Bacon with respect to the former inquiry, she consulted 
him as to the expediency of proceeding by information. 
Public Against this or any proceeding Bacon earnestly pro- 

proceeding f- es t ec l . anG | ? although the honest expression of his senti- 
Essex. ments so much offended the Queen that she rose from him 
in displeasure, it had the effect of suspending her determi- 
nation for some weeks, though she ultimately ordered that 
Essex should be accused in the Star Chamber. 

The following is Bacon's account of this resolution: 
" After this, during the while since my lord was committed 
to my Lord Keeper's, 1 came divers times to the Queen, as 
I had used to do, about causes of her revenue and law busi- 
ness : when the Queen at any time asked mine opinion of 
my lord's case, I ever in one tenor, besought her majesty 
to be advised again and again, how she brought the cause 
into any public question : nay, I went further, for I told 
her my lord was an eloquent and well spoken man, and 
besides his eloquence of nature or art, he had an eloquence 
of accident which passed them both, which was the pity 
and benevolence of his hearers ; and therefore wished the 
conclusion might be, that they might wrap it up privately 

(I) Sydney Papers, vol. ii. 182-5-7, 191-2-3. 
(???) Sydney Papers, vol. ii. 196 to 199. 



PUBLIC PROCEEDINGS AGAINST ESSEX. lvil 

between themselves, and that she would restore my lord to 
his former attendance, with some addition of honour to 
take away discontent. But towards the end of Easter 
term her majesty brake with me, and told me that she had 
found my words true, for that the proceeding in the Star 
Chamber had done no good, but rather kindled factious 
bruits (as she termed them) than quenched them, and 
therefore that she was determined now for the satisfaction 
of the world, to proceed against my lord in the Star 
Chamber, by an information ore tenus, and to have my 
lord brought to his answer; howbeit she said, she would 
assure me that whatsoever she did should be towards my 
lord ad castigationem, et non ad destructionem, as indeed 
she had often repeated the same phrase before : whereunto 
I said, to the end utterly to divert her, Madam, if you 
will have me speak to you in this argument, I must speak 
to you as Friar Bacon's head spake, that said first, Time 
is, and then Time was, and Time would never be ; for cer- 
tainly, said I, it is now far too late, the matter is cold, and 
hath taken too much wind; whereat she seemed again 
offended, and rose from me, and that resolution for a while 
continued ; and after, in the beginning of Midsummer term, 
I attending her, and finding her settled in that resolution, 
which I heard of also otherwise, she falling upon the like 
speech, it is true, that seeing no other remedy, I said to 
her slightly, Why, madam, if you will needs have a pro- 
ceeding, you were best have it in some such sort as Ovid 
spake of his mistress, Est aliquid luce patente minus, to 
make a council-table matter of it, and there an end ; which 
speech again she seemed to take in ill part, but yet I think 
it did good at that time, and helped to divert that course 
of proceeding by information in the Star Chamber. Never- 
theless, afterwards it pleased her to make a more solemn 
matter of the proceeding, and some few days after, when 



lviii LIFE OF BACON. 

order was given that the matter should be heard at York 
House, before an assembly of councillors, peers, and judges, 
and some audience of men of quality to be admitted." (w) 

Such were the measures adopted by the Queen to dispel, 
as she termed them, " the bruits and malicious imputa- 
tions" of her people; but, jealous of their affections, she 
resented every murmur of public disapprobation by some 
new severity to Essex; and her conduct, neither marked 
by strict justice, or generous forgiveness, exhibited more 
of the caprice of an angry woman than the steady resent- 
ment of an offended monarch. What calamities would 
have been averted, if, instead of suffering herself to be 
hurried by this conflict of agitated feelings, the Queen had 
attended to the advice of Bacon, whose care for her honour, 
and love for his friend, might have been safely trusted, 
and who looking through the present, decided upon conse- 
quences with a certainty almost prophetic. The most 
profound statesman of the present day, possessed of all the 
light which history gives him, can add nothing to the 
prudent politic course which Bacon pointed out to the 
Queen. She rejected this advice with a blind despotism 
that would neither be counselled with or against her incli- 
nations, and fearing and suspecting all around her, ruined 
the man she wished to save, and eventually made total 
wreck of her own peace of mind. 

It was determined that proceedings should be instituted ; 
but, as the Queen assured Bacon, only " ad castigationem 
non ad destructionem" not to taint the character of Essex, 
by which he might be rendered unable to bear office about 
her person, but before a selected council, " inter domesticos 
parietes, non luce for ensi." (o) This resolution having been 
formed, the Queen's counsel learned in the law, were 

(») See note 3 W at the end. (o) See 3 X at the end. 



COUNSEL AGAINST ESSEX. lix 

assembled to determine upon the mode of proceeding. At 

this meeting, it was said (p) by one of the courtiers, that Bacon 

her maiesty was not resolved whether Mr. Bacon should counsel 
J 2 against 

act in this trial as one of her counsel. What must Essex. 
have passed in his mind when he heard this observation ! 
He knew enough of the common charities of courts to 
suspect every thing. He knew that the Queen looked 
with great jealousy and distrust at his having " crossed 
her disposition" by his steady friendship for Essex. He 
saw, therefore, that whether this remark was a stratagem 
to sound his intentions, or that some attempt had been 
made to ruin him in the Queen's opinion, by inducing her 
to suppose that he would sacrifice her to the popular 
clamour of which she was too sensible, it required his ■ 
immediate and vigilant attention. In this situation of no 
common difficulty the conflict of his various duties, to the 
Queen, to Essex, and to himself, were instantly present to 
his mind. 

To the Queen he was under the greatest obligation : she Bacon's 
was the friend of his father, and had been his friend from t0 ^ l ° U 
his infancy; she consulted with him in all her difficulties; Queen, 
she had conferred upon him a valuable reversion of 2000/. 
a year, had promoted him to be her counsel, and, what 
perhaps w T as her greatest kindness, instead of having hastily 
advanced him, she had, with a continuance of her friend- 
ship, made him bear the yoke in his youth. Such were 
his obligations to Elizabeth, of whom he never spoke but 
with affection for her virtues, and respect for her com- 
manding intellect. 

He had also great esteem for the virtues of Essex, and Friendship 
great admiration of the higher powers of his mind. He 01 ssex ' 
felt for him with all the hopes and fears of a parent for a 

(p) See note 3 Y at the end. 



lx 



LIFE OF BACON. 



wayward child, and with all the affection of a friend, from 
a deep feeling of his constant regard, and the grateful recol- 
lection of what, in the common world, would be deemed of 
more importance, an act of pecuniary kindness, not, as in 
these cases is generally supposed, to purchase, but to pro- 
cure his liberty of thought and action. 

Of his relative duties to the Queen and to Essex no man 
was a more competent judge than Bacon: no man was 
better, none so well grounded in the true rules of this 
difficult part of moral science. In his tract on Duty, in 
the Advancement of Learning, he truly says, " There is 
formed in every thing a double nature of good ; the one as 
every thing is a total or substantive in itself, the other as 
it is a part or member of a greater body; whereof the latter 
is in degree the greater and the worthier. This double 
nature of good and the comparative thereof is much more 
engraven upon man, if he degenerate not, unto whom the 
conservation of duty to the public ought to be much more 
precious than the conservation of life and being, according 
to that memorable speech of Pompeius Magnus, when 
being in commission of purveyance for a famine at Rome, 
and being dissuaded with great vehemency and instance 
by his friends about him, that he should not hazard him- 
self to sea in an extremity of weather, he said only to them, 
' Necesse est ut earn non ut vivam.' " (r) And when Essex 
proffered him assistance, he, weighing these duties, admo- 
nished his friend that this was not to interfere with his 
duty to his sovereign. His words were, " I must and will 
ever acknowledge my lord's love, trust, and favour towards 
me, after the Queen had denied me the solicitor's place, 
when he said, You have spent your time and thoughts in 
my matters; I die, these were his very words, if I do not 
somewhat towards your fortune. My answer, I remember, 

(r) See note 3 Z at the end. 



COUNSEL AGAINST ESSEX. lxi 

was that for my fortune it was no great matter ; but that his 

lordship's offer (which was of a piece of land worth about 

£1800.) made me call to mind what was wont to be said 

when I was in France of the Duke of Guise, that he was 

the greatest usurer in France, because he had turned all 

his estate into obligations. He bad me take no care for that, 

and pressed it ; whereupon I said, " my lord, I see I must be 

your homager, and hold land of your gift; but do you know 

the manner of doing homage in law ? Always it is with a 

saving of his faith to the king and his other lords." {a) 

His considerations were not, however, confined to his Bacon's 

duties to the Queen and to Essex, but extended to the ^-Y *?„ 

himself. 
peculiar situation in which, with respect to his own worldly 

prospects, he was placed. He saw that, if he did not plead 
against Essex, all his hopes of advancement might, without 
any benefit to his friend, be destroyed ; and that if he did 
plead against him, he should be exposed to obloquy and 
misrepresentation. The consideration of his worldly pros- 
pects were to him and to the community of great im- 
portance. 

It is, perhaps, to be lamented that, formed for contem- 
plation, he was induced, either by his necessities, or any 
erroneous notion of the virtue of activity, to engage in 
public life, but he was always unskilful to note the card 
of prudent lore, and it was his favourite opinion that, to 
dignify and exalt knowledge, contemplation and action 
should be nearly and strongly conjoined and united toge- 
ther: a conjunction like unto that of the two highest planets, 
Saturn, the planet of rest and contemplation, and Jupiter, 
the planet of civil society and action. 

Having engaged and encountered all the difficulties of 
his profession, he was entitled, by his commanding intellect, 
to possess the power, which, although it had not prece- 



(a) Bacon's Apology. 






Ixii LIFE OF BACOiY. 

dence in his thoughts, followed regularly in the train of 
his duty ; not the common vulgar power, from ostentation, 
loving trivial pomp and city noise; or from ambition, which, 
like the sealed dove, mounts and mounts because it is 
unable to look about it ; but power to advance science and 
promote merit, according to his maxim and in the spirit of 
his own words "detur digniori."(s) " Power to do good is 
the true and lawful end of aspiring; for good thoughts, 
though God accept them, yet towards men are little better 
than good dreams, except they be put in act; and that 
cannot be without power and place, as the vantage and 
commanding ground." With these prospects before him 
he could not be so weak as hastily to abandon them, by 
yielding to that generous illusion by which the noblest 
minds are often raised in their own esteem by imagined 
disinterestedness. 
His pro- With respect to his professional duties he was in less 
duties difficulty. He knew that his conduct would be subject 
" to envy and peril," but knowing also that these aspersions 
would originate in good feeling, in the supposition of ingra- 
titude and disregard of truth, he could not be alarmed at the 
clamours of those who knew not what they did. To consider 
every suggestion, in favour and in opposition to any opinion 
is, according to his doctrine in the Novum Organ urn, the 
only solid foundation upon which any judgment, even in 
the calm inquiries of philosophy, can be formed. In public 
assemblies, therefore, agitated by passions by which the pro- 
gress of truth is disturbed, he of all men knew and admired 
the wise constitution of our courts, (t) in which it has been 
deemed expedient, that, to elicit truth, the judge should 
hear the opposite statements of the same(£) or of different 
powerful disinterested minds, who may be more able than 

(s) See note 4 A at the end. (t) See note 4 B at the end. 



COUNSEL AGAINST ESSEX. 1 



Xlli 



the suitors to do justice to the causes upon which their 
interests depend. A more efficacious mode to disentangle 
difficulty, to expose falsehood, and discover truth, was, 
perhaps, never devised. It prevents the influence of pas- 
sions by which truth may be impeded, and calls in aid 
every intellectual power by which justice may be advanced. 
He was not likely, therefore, to be moved by the censures 
of those who, ignorant of the principle upon which this 
practice is founded, imagine advocates to be indiscriminate 
defenders of right and wrong, (x) instead of being officers 
assisting in the administration of justice, and acting under 
the impression that truth is best discovered by powerful 
statements on both sides of the question. He was not 
likely to be moved by that ignorant censure which mixes 
the counsel with his client, instead of knowing that the 
advocate is indifferent on which side he pleads, whether 
for the most unfortunate or the most prosperous, for the 
most virtuous or the most abandoned member of the com- 
munity ; and that, if he were not indifferent, — if he were 
to exercise any discretion as to the party for whom he 
pleads, the course of justice would be interrupted by pre- 
judice to the suitor, and the exclusion of integrity from the 
profession. The suitor would be prejudiced in proportion 
to the respectability of the advocate who had shrunk from 
his defence, and the weight of character of the counsel 
would be evidence in the cause. Integrity would be ex- 
cluded from the profession, as the counsel would necessarily 
be associated with the cause of his client ; with the slan- 
derer, the adulterer, the murderer, or the traitor, whom it 
may be his duty to defend. 

Such were the various conflicting duties by which a 
common mind might have been perplexed ; but, strong in 

(x) See note 4 B at the end. 



IxiV LIFE OF BACON". 

knowledge, he, without embarrassment, looked steadily at 
the undefined shapes of difficulty and danger, of possible 
mistake or mischance, and, without any of the vacillation 
in which contemplative genius is too apt to indulge, he 
saw instantly the path of his duty, and steadily advanced 
in it. He saw that, if he acted in obedience to general 
rules, he ought neither to desert the Queen, or to bereave 
himself of the power to do good. If, not adhering to 
general rules, he exercised his own understanding upon 
the particular circumstances of the case, he saw that, by 
yielding to popular feeling, he might gain momentary 
applause, might leave Essex to a merciless opponent, and, 
by depriving himself of all influence over the Queen, might 
sacrifice his friend at the foot of the throne. 
Bacon's He therefore wrote instantly to the Queen, and, by this 

the Queen sa g ac i° us an d determined conduct, having at once defeated 
the stratagems by which it was vainly hoped that he would 
be entangled, he, regardless of the senseless clamour of 
those who praise they know not what, and know not 
whom ; of those who could neither be put in possession of 
his real sentiments towards Essex, or the private communi- 
cations on his behalf with the Queen, went right onward 
with his own, and the approbation of intelligence. 

The following is Bacon's own account of this extra- 
ordinary event : — And then did some principal counsellors 
send for us of the learned counsel, and notify her majesty's 
pleasure unto us : save that it was said to me openly by 
one of them, that her majesty was not yet resolved whether 
she would have me forborn in the business or no. And 
hereupon might arise that other sinister and untrue speech 
that, I hear, is raised of me, how I was a suitor to be used 
against my lord of Essex at that time ; for it is very true, 
that I that knew well what had passed between the Queen 
and me, and what occasion I had given her both of distaste 



COUNSEL AGAINST ESSEX. 



lxv 



and distrust, in crossing her disposition, by standing stead- 
fastly for my lord of Essex, and suspecting it also to be a 
stratagem arising from some particular emulation, I writ to 
her two or three words of compliment, signifying to her 
majesty, " That if she would be pleased to spare me in my 
lord of Essex's cause, out of the consideration she took of 
my obligation towards him, I should reckon it for one of 
her greatest favours: but otherwise desiring her majesty 
to think that I knew the degrees of duties ; and that no 
particular obligation whatsoever to any subject could sup- 
plant or weaken that entireness of duty that I did owe and 
bear to her and her service." And this was the goodly 
suit I made, being a respect no man that had his wits 
could have omitted : but nevertheless I had a farther reach 
in it; for I judged that day's work would be a full period 
of any bitterness or harshness between the Queen and my 
lord : and therefore, if I declared myself fully according to 
her mind at that time^ which could not do my lord any 
manner of prejudice, I should keep my credit with her ever 
after, whereby to do my lord service. 

The proceedings after this communication to the Queen 
are thus stated by Bacon : — " Hereupon the next news that 
I heard was, that we were all sent for again ; and that her 
majesty's pleasure was, we all should have parts in the 
business; and the lords falling into distribution of cur 
parts, it was allotted to me, that I should set forth some 
undutiful carriage of my lord, in giving occasion and coun- 
tenance to a seditious pamphlet, as it was termed, which 
was dedicated unto him, which was the book before men- 
tioned of King Henry IV. Whereupon I replied to that 
allotment, and said to their lordships, That it was an old 
matter, and had no manner of coherence with the rest of 
the charge, being matters of Ireland : and therefore, that I 
having been wronged by bruits before, this would expose 

VOL. XV. f 



lxvili LIFE OF BACON. 

mercy I cannot enough extol ; whereof the earl is a singular 
work, in that, upon his humble suit, she is content not to 
prosecute him in her court of justice, the Star Chamber, 
but, according to his own earnest desire, to remove that 
cup from him, for those are my lord's own words, and doth 
now suffer his cause to be heard inter privatos parietes, by 
way of mercy and favour only, where no manner of dis- 
loyalty is laid to his charge, for if that had been the ques- 
tion this had not been the place." In this strain he pro- 
ceeded through the whole of his address. 

He constantly kept in view the Queen's determination 
neither to injure her favourite in person nor in purse; he 
averred that there was no charge of disloyalty; he stated 
nothing as a lawyer; nothing from his own ingenious mind; 
nothing that could displease the Queen ; he repeated only 
passages from letters, in the Queen's possession, complain- 
ing of her cruelty and obduracy ; topics which she loved to 
have set forth in her intercourse with a man whom she was 
thought to have too much favoured ; he selected the most 
affecting expressions from the earl's letter, and though he 
at last performed his part of the task, by touching upon 
Hayward's book, he established in the minds of the hearers 
the fact that Essex had called in the work a week after he 
learnt that it was published. 

To those who are familiar with Bacon's style, and know 
the fertility of his imagination, and the force of his rea- 
soning, it is superfluous to observe that he brought to this 
semblance of a trial only the shadow of a speech ; and that 
under the flimsy veil of an accuser there may easily be de- 
tected the face of a friend. 

In answer to these charges, Essex, on his knees, declared 
that, ever since it had pleased her majesty to remove that 
cup from him, he had laid aside all thought of justifying 
himself, or of making any contestation with his sovereign ; 



TRIAL OF ESSEX. 



lxix 



that he had made a divorce between himself and the world, 
and that, rather than bear a charge of disloyalty or want of 
affection, he would tear his heart out of his breast with his 
own hands. The first part of his defence drew tears from 
many of the hearers ; but, being somewhat touched by the 
sharp speeches and rhetorical flourishes of his accusers, he 
expressed himself with so much heat, before he had gone 
half through with his reply, that he was interrupted by the 
lord keeper, who told him " this was not the course to do 
him good ; that he would do well to commit himself to her 
majesty's mercy; that he was acquitted by all present of 
disloyalty, of which he did not stand charged, but of dis- 
obedience and contempt; and if he meant to say that he 
had disobeyed, without an intention of disobedience, it was 
frivolous and absurd." 

In pronouncing the censure, the lord keeper declared, 
that if Essex had been tried elsewhere, and in another 
manner, a great fine and imprisonment for life must have 
been his sentence, but as he was in a course of favour, his 
censure was, " That the Earl of Essex should be suspended 
from his offices, and continue a prisoner in his own house 
till it pleased her majesty to release him." The Earl of 
Cumberland declared, that, if he thought the censure was 
to stand, he would ask more time, for it seemed to him 
somewhat severe ; and intimated how easily a general com- 
mander might incur the like, but, in confidence of her 
majesty's mercy, he agreed with the rest. 

Of this day's proceedings a confused and imperfect ac- 
count has been published by several historians, (a) and an 
unfair view taken of the conduct of Bacon, who could not 
have any assignable motive for the course they have attri- 
buted to him. The Queen was evidently determined to 

(a) See particularly Hume. 



1XX LTFE OF BACON. 

protect her favourite. The Cecils had abated their ani- 
mosity. The people were anxious for his reinstatement. 
Anthony Bacon was at this time living under the protection 
of Essex, and the brothers were in constant and affectionate 
intercourse. 
6th June, The sentence had scarcely been pronounced, when Bacon's 
anxiety for his friend again manifested itself. On the very 
next day he attended the Queen, fully resolved to exert his 
utmost endeavours to restore Essex again to favour. The 
account of his interview with the Queen, from which his 
friendship and the Queen's affection for Essex may be 
seen, is thus stated by Bacon : u As soon as this day was 
past, I lost no time ; but the very next day following, as I 
remember, I attended her majesty, fully resolved to try 
and put in ure my utmost endeavour, so far as I in my 
weakness could give furtherance, to bring my lord again 
speedily into court and favour ; and knowing, as I supposed 
at least, how the Queen was to be used, I thought that to 
make her conceive that the matter went well then, was 
the way to make her leave off there ; and I remember well 
I said to her, ' You have now, madam, obtained victory 
over two things, which the greatest princes in the world 
cannot at their wills subdue; the one is over fame; the 
other is over a great mind : for surely the world is now, I 
hope, reasonably well satisfied; and for my lord, he did 
shew that humiliation towards your majesty, as I am per- 
suaded he was never in his lifetime more fit for your 
majesty's favour than he is now : therefore, if your majesty 
will not mar it by lingering, but give over at the best, 
and now you have made so good a full point, receive him 
again with tenderness, I shall then think, that all that 
is past is for the best.' Whereat, I remember, she took 
exceeding great contentment, and did often iterate and put 
me in mind, that she had ever said, that her proceedings 



TRIAL OF ESSEX. Ixxi 

should be ' ad reparationem,' and not t ad ruinam;' as 
who saith, that now was the time I should well perceive 
that that saying of hers should prove true. And farther 
she willed me to set down in writing all that passed that 
day." (a) 

In a few days Bacon waited upon the Queen with the 
narrative, who, upon hearing him read Essex's answer, 
which was his principal care, " was exceedingly moved in 
kindness and relenting," and said, " How well you have 
expressed my lord's part : I perceive old love will not easily 
be forgotten." Availing himself of these favourable dispo- 
sitions, Bacon ventured to say to the Queen, " he hoped 
she meant that of herself;" and in the conclusion suggested 
that it might be expedient not to let this matter go forth 
to the public, since by her own command no record had 
been kept, and that it was not well to do that popularly 
which she had not suffered to be done judicially. The 
Queen assented, and the narrative was suppressed, (b) 

(a) See Bacon's Apology, vol. vi. 266. 

(b) Bacon's account is as follows : — I obeyed her commandment, and 
within some few days after brought her again the narration, which I did 
read unto her in two several afternoons ; and when I came to that part that 
set forth my lord's own answer, which was my principal care, I do well 
bear in mind, that she was extraordinarily moved with it, in kindness and 
relenting towards my lord : and told me afterwards, speaking how well I 
had expressed my lord's part, that she perceived old love would not easily 
be forgotten: whereunto I answered suddenly, that I hoped she meant 
that by herself. But in conclusion, I did advise her, that now she had 
taken a representation of the matter to herself, that she would let it go no 
farther : " For madam," said I, " the fire blazeth well already, what should 
you tumble it? And besides, it may please you to keep a convenience 
with yourself in this case; for since your express direction was, there 
should be no register nor clerk to take this sentence, nor no record or 
memorial made up of the proceeding, why should you now do that popu- 
larly, which you would not admit to be done judicially?" Whereupon 
she did agree that that writing should be suppressed; and I think there 
were not five persons that ever saw it. — Apology, vol. vi. 267. 



Ixxii LIFE OF BACON. 

Obloquy Amidst these exertions, known at that time only to the 
c Bacon. Q ueen? £ E ssex? an( j to his confidential friends, Bacon was 
exposed to great obloquy, and, at the time when he was 
thinking only how he could most and best serve his friend, 
he was threatened by the populace with personal violence, 
as one who had deserted and betrayed him. Unmoved by 
such clamour, upon which he had calculated, (a) he went 
right onward in his course. 

To Sir Robert Cecil, and to Lord Henry Howard, the 
confidential friend of Essex, and who had willingly shared 
his banishment from court, he indignantly complained of 
these slanders and threats. To Lord Howard he says : (b) 
" My Lord, There be very few besides yourself, to whom 
I would perform this respect. For I contemn mendacia 
faiTKZy as it walks among inferiors, though I neglect it 
not, as it may have entrance into some ears. For your 
lordship's love, rooted upon good opinion, I esteem it 
highly, because I have tasted the fruits of it ; and we both 
have tasted of the best waters, in my account, to knit 
minds together. There is shaped a tale in London's forge, 
that beateth apace at this time, that I should deliver 



(a) His Apology to the Earl of Devonshire contains various observations 
to this effect : — I was not so unseen in the world, but I knew the condition 
was subject to envy and peril, &c. but I resolved to endure it, in expecta- 
tion of better. Acording to the ordinary charities of court, it was given 
out, that I was one of them that incensed the Queen against my lord of 
Essex ; and I must give this testimony to my lord Cecil, that one time in 
his house at the Savoy he dealt with me directly, and said to me, " Cousin, 
I hear it, but I believe it not, that you should do some ill office to my lord 
of Essex ; for my part, I am merely passive, and not active in this action ; 
and I follow the Queen, and that heavily, and I lead her not ; my lord of 
Essex is one that in nature I could consent with as well as with any one 
living; the Queen indeed is my sovereign, and I am her creature, I may 
not lose her, and the same course I would wish you to take." Whereupon 
I satisfied him how far I was from any such mind. 

(6) Birch, 459. 



OBLOQUY OF BACON. lxxili 

opinion to the Queen, in my lord of Essex* cause. First, 
that it was premunire, and now last, that it was high 
treason; and this opinion, to be in opposition and encounter 
of the Lord Chief Justice's opinion, and the Attorney 
General's. My lord, I thank God, my wit serveth me not 
to deliver any opinion to the Queen, which my stomach 
serveth me not to maintain : one and the same conscience 
of duty guiding me and fortifying me. But the untruth 
of this fable, God and my sovereign can witness, and 
there I leave it; knowing no more remedy against lies 
than others do against libels. The root, no question of 
it is, partly some light-headed envy at my accesses to 
her majesty; which being begun, and continued since my 
childhood, as long as her majesty shall think me worthy 
of them, I scorn those that shall think the contrary. And 
another reason is, the aspersion of this tale, and the envy 
thereof, upon some greater man, in regard of my nearness. 
And therefore, my lord, I pray you answer for me to any 
person that you think worthy your own reply and my 
defence. For my lord of Essex, I am not servile to him, 
having regard to my superior's duty. I have been much 
bound unto him ; and, on the other side, I have spent more 
time and more thoughts about his well doing than ever I 
did about mine own. I pray God you his friends amongst 
you be in the right. Nulla remedia, tarn faciunt dolorem, 
quam qua sunt salutaria. For my part, I have deserved 
better than to have my name objected to envy, or my life 
to a ruffian's violence. But I have the privy coat of a good 
conscience. I am sure these courses and bruits hurt my 
lord more than all. So having written to your lordship, I 
desire exceedingly to be preferred in your good opinion and 
love. And so leave you to God's goodness." (x) 

(r) The letter to Sir Rob. Cecil is to the same effect. See vol. xii. p. 168. 



lxxiv 



LIFE OF BACON. 



The answer of Lord Howard to this letter, the best 
answer that could be made to the slanderers of whom 
Bacon complains, is as follows : " I might be thought un- 
worthy of that good conceit you hold of me, good Mr. 
Bacon, if I did not sympathize with so sensitive a mind 
in this smart of wrongful imputation of unthankfulness. 
You were the first that gave me notice, I protest, at Rich- 
mond of the rumour, though within two days after I heard 
more than I would of it ; but as you suffer more than you 
deserve, so I cannot believe what the greedy malice of the 
world hath laid upon you. The travels of that worthy 
gentleman in your behalf, when you stood for a place of 
credit ; the delight which he hath ever taken in your com- 
pany; his grief that he could not seal up assurance of his 
love by fruits, effects, and offices proportionable to an infi- 
nite desire ; his study, in my knowledge, to engage your 
love by the best means he could devise, are forcible per- 
suasions and instances to make me judge that a gentleman 
so well born, a wise gentleman so well levelled, a gentleman 
so highly valued by a person of his virtue, worth, and 
quality, will rather hunt after all occasions of expressing 
thankfulness, so far as duty doth permit, than either omit 
opportunity or increase indignation. No man alive out of 
the thoughts of judgment, the ground of knowledge, and 
lesson of experience, is better able to distinguish betwixt 
public and private offices, and direct measure in keeping a 
measure in discharge of both, to which I will refer you for 
the finding out of the golden number. In my own parti- 
cular opinion I esteem of you as I have ever done and your 
rare parts deserve; and so far as my voice hath credit, 
justify your credit according to the warrant of your pro- 
fession, and the store of my best wishes in all degrees 
towards you, &c. My credit is so weak in working any 
strange effect of friendship where I would do most, as to 



IMPRUDENCE OF ESSEX. lxXV 

speak of blossoms without giving tastes of fruits were idle- 
ness ; but if you will give credit to my words, it is not long 
since I gave testimony of my good affection in the ear of 
one that neither wants desire nor means to do for you. 
Thus wishing to your credit that allowance of respect and 
reverence which your wise and honest letter doth deserve, 
and resting ever ready to relieve all minds (so far as my 
ability and means will stretch) that groan under the bur- 
then of undeserved wrong, I commend you to God's protec- 
tion and myself to the best use you will make of me. In 
haste from my lodging," &c. 

The partizans of Essex again interfered, to raise the 
flames which Bacon had so judiciously suppressed, and 
again were the Queen's ministers compelled to check their 
imprudence. 

On the 12th of June, the lord keeper, in his usual June 12, 
speech in the Star Chamber to the country gentlemen, 160 °* 
mentioned the late proceeding against the Earl of Essex, 
who, he observed, had acknowledged his errors, and ex- 
pressed his sorrow for them; but that some wicked persons 
had intermeddled by libelling what her majesty had done 
in that point, which occasioned a proclamation to be pub- 
lished against such seditious practices, (a) 

Notwithstanding this ill-advised conduct, the Queen was 
desirous to remove from Essex the restraint of a keeper, 
when her indignation was again excited by a rumour, 
that Essex had been duly authorized by her to create 
knights, though his having conferred that honour had been 
made a charge against him before the commissioners, In 
the first moment of her displeasure she determined to 
rescind the honours he had bestowed. Bacon advised her 
against this step, and recommended that a letter written 

(a) Sydney Papers, vol. ii. 201. 



lxxvi LIFE OF BACON. 

by her own hand to Essex, when in Ireland, should be 
made public, in which she had commanded to the con- 
trary. Upon sending to Essex for her letter, he returned 
a submissive reply, but said that it was either lost or 
mislaid; and, though her anger was great at the non- 
production of this document, she, early in the next month, 
ordered him to be liberated from his keeper, but not to 
quit London, (b) 

Upon this release, which his declining health rendered 
necessary, he solicited permission to retire to the house of 
a relation near Reading ; a permission which the Queen, 
although she commanded him to dismiss two of his friends 
from his service, and although disturbed and displeased, 
seemed inclined to grant, as she listened to friendly com- 
munications made on his behalf, and received letters from 
him, (c) in which, having discovered the wisdom of his 
friend's advice, " that the Queen could not be controlled 
by resistance," (d) he was endeavouring to regain by obse- 
quiousness the ascendancy which he had lost by his rude 

(b) Sydney Papers, p. 204. Her majesty is greatly troubled with the 
last number of knights made by the Earl of Essex in Ireland, and purposes, 
by public proclamation, to command them from the place due to their 
dignity ; and that no ancient gentleman of the kingdom gave them any 
place. The warrant was signed, as I heard ; but by Mr. Secretary's very 
special care and credit, it is stayed till Sunday the lords meet in court. 
Mr. Bacon is thought to be the man that moves her majesty unto it, affirm- 
ing, that by the law the earl had no authority to make them, being by her 
majesty's own letter, of her own hand written, commanded the contrary. 

Her Majesty had ordered the Lord Keeper to remove my lord of Essex's 
keeper from him ; but awhile after, being somewhat troubled with the 
remembrance of his making so many knights, made a stay of her former 
order, and sent unto the earl for her own letter, which she writ unto him to 
command him to make none. But, with a very submissive letter, he 
returned answer that he had lost it or mislaid it, for he could not find it, 
which somewhat displeases her majesty. As yet his liberty stands upon 
these terms, &c. &c. — 28 June, 1600. 

(c) Sydney Papers, 205-7-3-12. 
(c?) Ante, page xlv. 



Essex's liberation. 1 



xxvn 



and headstrong violence ; assuring the Queen, " that he 
kissed her royal hand and the rod which had corrected him ; 
that he could never recover his wonted joy till he beheld 
her comfortable eyes, which had been his guiding stars, 
and by the conduct whereof he had sailed most happily 
whilst he held his course in a just latitude; that now 
he was determined to repent him of his offence, and to 
say with Nebuchodonosor, my dwelling is with the beasts 
of the field, to eat grass as an ox, and to be wet with the 
dew of heaven, till it shall please the Queene to restore my 
understanding to me." (a) 

This abasement gratified Elizabeth, who said, " though 
she did not expect that his deeds would accord with his 
words, yet, if this could be brought to pass with the fur- 

(a) Camden, 169. Birch's Elizabeth, 461. One of the letters written by 
Mr. Francis Bacon for the earl, and printed among the works of the former, 
beginning with these words, " It were great simplicity in me," &c. is much 
inferior to what the earl himself would have written. But there are two 
others, which appear to have come from his lordship's own hand, and have 
not yet been seen in print. The first is in these terms : 

" Let me beg leave, most dear and most admired sovereign, to remember 
the story of your own gracious goodness, when I was even at the mouth of 
the grave. No worldly, means had power to stay me in this world but the 
comfort which I received from your majesty. When I was weak and full 
of infirmities, the increase of liberty which your majesty gave, and the gra- 
cious message which your majesty sent me, made me recover in a few 
weeks that strength, which my physicians in a long time durst not hope for. 
And now, lastly, when I should be for ever disabled for your majesty's 
service, and by consequence made unwilling to live, your majesty at my 
humble supplication granted, that that cup should pass from me. These 
are deeply engraven in my memory, and they shall ever be acknowledged 
by my tongue and pen. But yet after all these, without one farther degree 
of your mercy, your servant perisheth. Indignatio p^incipis mors est. He 
cannot be said to live, that feels the weight of it. What then can your 
majesty think of his state, that hath thus long lived under it, and yet sees 
not your majesty reach out your fair hand to take off part of this weight ? 
If your majesty could know what I feel, your sweet and excellent nature 
could not but be compassionate. I dare not lift up my voice to speak, but 
my humble (now exiled, though once too happy) eyes are lifted up, and 



IxXVlii LIFE OF BACON. 

nace, she should be more favourable to the profession of 
alchemy." 

Bacon, who was too wise to cross Elizabeth in the 
spring-tide of her anger, without waiting till it was ebbing- 
water, now exerted all his power to reconcile her to her 
favourite, whom, in his many accesses to the Queen, he 
availed himself of every opportunity to serve ; and, al- 
though he could not, without exciting her displeasure, 
directly communicate with him, he, by the intervention 
of a friend, regularly acquainted him with the progress he 
made in abating the Queen's anger; and, the moment he 
was restored to liberty, the assurances of his exertions were 
repeated by letter, and through the whole summer were 
regularly imparted to Essex, (b) 

speak in their dumb language, which your majesty will answer your own 
chosen time. Till then no soul is so afflicted as that of 

" Your Majesty's humblest vassal, Essex. 

The other letter was written on the 17th of November, the anniversary 
of her accession to the throne : 

" Vouchsafe, dread sovereign, to know there lives a man, though dead 
to the world, and in himself exercised with continual torments of body and 
mind, that doth more true honour to your thrice blessed day, than all 
those that appear in your sight. For no soul had ever such an impression 
of your perfections, no alteration shewed such an effect of your power, nor 
no heart ever felt such a joy of your triumph. For they that feel the com- 
fortable influence of your majesty's favour, or stand in the bright beams of 
your presence, rejoice partly for your majesty's, but chiefly for their own 
happiness. Only miserable Essex, full of pain, full of sickness, fall of 
sorrow, languishing in repentance for his offences past, hateful to himself, 
that he is yet alive, and importunate on death, if your favour be irrevo- 
cable; he joys only for your majesty's great happiness and happy great- 
ness : and were the rest of his days never so many, and sure to be as 
happy as they are like to be miserable, he would lose them all to have 
this happy 17th day many and many times renewed with glory to your 
majesty, and comfort of all your faithful subjects, of whom none is accursed 
but your Majesty's humblest vassal, Essex." 

(b) See note 4 D at the end. 



Essex's liberation. lxxix 

In the same spirit, and with the same parental anxiety 
by which all Bacon's conduct had been influenced, he 
wrote two letters, one as from Anthony Bacon to Essex, 
the other from Essex, in answer, both to be shown by 
Bacon to the Queen ; and prepared a letter to be sent by 
Essex directly to her majesty, (c) the scope of which were, 
says Bacon, " but to represent and picture forth unto her 
majesty my lord's mind to be such, as I knew her majesty 
would fainest have had it: which letters whosoever shall 
see, for they cannot now be retracted or altered, being by 
reason of my brother's or his lordship's servants' delivery, 
long since come into divers hands, let him judge, espe- 
cially if he knew the Queen, and do remember those 
times, whether they were not the labours of one that 
sought to bring the Queen about for my lord of Essex his 
good."(d) 

To such expedients did his friendship for Essex induce 
him to submit: expedients, which, however they may be 
sanctioned by the conduct of courtiers, stooping, as they 
suppose, to occasions not to persons, (x) but ill accord 

(c) See note 4 E at the end. 

(d) In another part of his Apology he says : " And I drew for him, by 
his appointment, some letters to her majesty ; which though I knew well 
his lordship's gift and style was far better than mine own, yet, because he 
required it, alleging, that by his long restraint he was grown almost a 
stranger to the Queen's present conceits, I was ready to perform it; and 
sure I am, that for the space of six weeks or two months it prospered so 
well, as I expected continually his restoring to his attendance." 

(x) See the Advancement of Learning (vol. ii. page 33), under the head 
of objections to learning from the manners of learned men. The passage 
begins " not that I," and ends, " these stoopings to points of necessity and 
convenience, though they may have some outward baseness, yet in a judg- 
ment truly made, they are to be accounted submissions to the occasion, not 
to the person." The nature of this debasement is powerfully stated in an 
essay upon the Regal Character, by William Hazlitt, in page 336 of his 
Political Essays. 



IXXX LIFE OF BACON. 

with the admonition of Bacon's philosophy, that " the 
honest and just bounds of observation by one person upon 
another, extend no further but to understand him suffi- 
ciently, whereby not to give him offence ; or whereby to be 
able to give him faithful counsel ; or whereby to stand upon 
reasonable guard and caution with respect to a man's self: 
but to be speculative into another man, to the end to know 
how to work him, or wind him, or govern him, proceedeth 
from a heart that is double and cloven, and not entire and 
ingenuous." (a) Such is Bacon's doctrine, but having, as 
it appears, in his youth, taken an unfortunate bias from 
the censures of Burleigh and Cecil, and from the frequent 
assertions of Elizabeth, that he was without knowledge of 

o 

affairs, he affected, through the whole of his life, an over- 
strained refinement in trifles, and a political subtlety, which 
never failed to awaken the suspicions of his enemies, and 
was altogether unworthy of his great mind. 

From these various efforts Bacon indulged the most 
flattering hopes of the restoration of his friend to the 
Queen's favour, in which, if Essex had acted with common 
prudence, he would have succeeded ; though the Queen 
kept alive her displeasure by many passionate expressions, 
"that he had long tried her anger, and she must have 
further proof of his humility, and that her father would not 
have endured his perverseness ;" but Bacon, who knew the 
depths and soundings of the Queen's character, was not 
dismayed by these ebullitions ; he saw, under the aoitated 
surface, a constant under-current of kindness. 

Bacon's account is as follows : " From this time forth 
during the whole latter end of that summer, while the 
court was at Nonsuch and Oatlands, I made it my task 
and scope to take and give occasions for my lord's redinte- 



(a) Advancement of Learning, vol. ii. p. 30, 



Essex's letters to the queen. lxxxi 

gration in his fortunes : which my intention, I did also 
signify to my lord as soon as ever he was at his liberty, (a) 
whereby I might without peril of the Queen's indignation 
write to him; and, having received from his lordship a 
courteous and loving acceptation of my good will and en- 
deavours, I did apply it in all my accesses to the Queen, 
which were very many at that time ; and purposely sought 
and wrought upon other variable pretences, but only and 
chiefly for that purpose. And on the other side, I did not 
forbear to give my lord from time to time faithful adver- 
tisement what I found, and what 1 wished. And I drew 
for him, by his appointment, some letters to her majesty; 
which, though I knew well his lordship's gift and style was 
far better than mine own, yet, because he required it, 
alleging, that by his long restraint he was grown almost a 
stranger to the Queen's present conceits, I was ready to 
perform it ; and sure I am, that for the space of six weeks 
or two months, it prospered so well, as I expected con- 
tinually his restoring to his attendance. And I was never 
better welcome to the Queen, nor more made of, than 
when I spake fullest and boldest for him : in which kind 
the particulars were exceeding many; whereof, for an 
example, I will remember to your lordship one or two. 
As at one time, I call to mind, her majesty was speak- 
ing of a fellow that undertook to cure, or at least to ease 
my brother of his gout, and asked me how it went for- 
ward; and I told her majesty, that at the first he received 
good by it, but after in the course of his cure he found 
himself at a stay, or rather worse : the Queen said again 
' I will tell you, Bacon, the error of it : the manner of these 
physicians, and especially these empirics, is to continue 
one kind of medicine, which at the first is proper, being to 

(a) See note 4 E at the end. 
VOL. XV. g 



lxxxii LIFE OF BACON. 

draw out the ill humour ; but after, they have not the dis- 
cretion to change the medicine, but apply still drawing 
medicines, when they should rather intend to cure and cor- 
roborate the part. 7 (a) ' Good Lord ! madam,' said I, ' how 
wisely and aptly can you speak and discern of physic 
ministered to the body, and consider not that there is the 
like occasion of physic ministered to the mind : as now in 
the case of my lord of Essex, your princely word ever 
was, that you intended ever to reform his mind, and not 
ruin his fortune : I know well you cannot but think that 
you have drawn the humour sufficiently ; and therefore it 
were more than time, and it were but for doubt of morti- 
fying or exulcerating, that you did apply and minister 
strength and comfort unto him : for these same gradations 
of yours are fitter to corrupt than correct any mind of 
greatness/" 
August, In the latter end of August Essex was summoned to 

,, " attend at York House, where the Lord Keeper, the Lord 

Essex hbe- . l 

rated. Treasurer, and Secretary signified the Queen's pleasure 

that he should be restored to liberty. He answered that 
his resolution was to lead a retired life in the country, but 
solicited them to intercede with her majesty that, before his 
departure, he might once come into the presence of the 
Queen, and kiss her hand, that with some contentment, he 
might betake himself to his solitary life: hopes which, 
however, seemed not likely to be realized, (d) as the Queen's 
permission for .him to retire into the country was accom- 
panied with the declaration, that, although her majesty 
was contented that he should be under no guard but of 
duty and discretion, yet he must in no sort suppose that 



(a) See Advancement of Learning, under the title Cure of Diseases, 
vol. ii. p. 166. 

(d) Sydney Papers, 213. 



RENEWAL OF SWEET WINES. lxxxiii 

he was freed of her indignation, or presume to approach 
the court, or her person, (m) 

Thus liberated, but not restored to the Queen's favour, 
he walked forth alone, without any greetings from his 
1 summer friends.' (m) 

In the beginning of September Essex retired to the September 
country, with the pleasing hope that the Queen's affection 
was returning, and that he would not only be received into 
favour, and restored to power, (V) but that, by the influence 
of this affection he might secure an object of the greatest 
importance, a renewal of his valuable patent for the mono- 
poly of sweet wines, which, after having enriched him for 
years, was now expiring. 

Essex considered this renewal as one of the most critical 
events of his life, an event that would determine whether 
he might hope ever to be reinstated in his former credit 
and authority; but Elizabeth, though capable of strong 
attachments, inherited the haughty and severe temper of 
her father, and, being continually surrounded by the ene- 
mies of Essex, was persuaded that his lofty spirit was 
not sufficiently subdued; and when, at length, she was 
more favourably disposed towards him, he destroyed all 
that her own lurking partiality and the kindness of his 
friends had prepared for him by a letter, which, professing 
affection and seeking profit, was so deficient in good taste 
and in knowledge of the Queen's temper, that she saw, 
through all the expressions of his devotion and humility, 



(m) Original letters of Secretary Cecil to Sir George Carew, in the Lam- 
beth Library, No. 604, fol. 23. 

(x) Winwood's Memorials, vol. i. p. 254. Sir Henry Nevil to Mr. 
Winwood, 9th Sept. 1600, a long letter upon different subjects, thus 
concludes : " The Earl of Essex is gone to Ewelme, not without hope of 
some further grace shortly: there are many arguments that the Queen 
begins to relent towards him, and to wish him near her." 



Ixxxiv LIFE OF BACON. 

a view only to his own interest. The Queen told me, says 
Bacon, "that my lord had written her some very dutiful 
letters, and that she had been moved by them, but when 
she took it to be the abundance of his heart, she found it 
to be but a preparative to a suit for the renewing of his 
farm of sweet wines." To this complaint Bacon made the 
following characteristic and ingenious reply : " O Madam, 
how doth your majesty construe these things, as if these 
two could not stand well together, which indeed nature 
hath planted in all creatures. For there are but two sym- 
pathies, the one towards perfection, the other towards pre- 
servation : that to perfection, as the iron tendeth to the 
loadstone ; that to preservation, as the vine will creep to- 
wards a stake or prop that stands by it, not for any love 
to the stake, but to uphold itself. And therefore, madam, 
you must distinguish my lord's desire to do you service, is 
as to his perfection that which he thinks himself to be 
born for ; whereas his desire to obtain this thing of you, is 
but for a sustentation." (t) 

The result, however, was, that hurt by this letter, she 
indignantly and somewhat coarsely refused his suit, say- 
ing, " that an unruly beast ought to be stinted of his 
provender." After a month's suspense, it was notified 
to him that the patent was confided to trustees for the 
Queen's use. (j/) 

Essex's In the storm that now gathered round Essex, the real 

* i 
vio ence. sta f- e f fag mind revealed itself. " When I expected," he 

1600. ' sa id, " a harvest, a tempest has arisen to me; if I be want- 
ing to myself, my friends, and my country, it is long of 
others, not of myself ; let my adversaries triumph, I will not 
follow the triumphal chariot." He who had declared his 
willingness " to wander and eat grass with the beasts of the 

(t) Apology, vol. vi. p. 2. (3/) CamdeD, 170. Sydney Papers, 206. 



bacon's interview with the queen. Ixxxv 

field, like Nebuchadnezzar, until the Queen should restore 
his senses," now, that this abject prostration proved fruit- 
less, loudly proclaimed that " he could not serve with base 
obsequiousness ; that he was thrust down into private life, 
and wrongfully committed to custody, and this by an old 
woman no less crooked in mind than in body." These ebul- 
litions of peevish anger were duly repeated to the Queen 
by those who hoped for his utter ruin. Elizabeth, shocked 
at the ingratitude of a man upon whom she had lavished 
so many favours ; whose repeated faults she had forgiven, 
till forgiveness became folly, now turned away with extreme 
indignation from all whom she suspected of urging one 
word in his favour ; and, remembering the constant exer- 
tions which had ever been made by Bacon on his behalf, 
began to think of him with distrust and jealousy. She 
would not so much as look at him ; and whenever he 
desired to speak with her about law business, sent him out 
slighting refusals. 

Bacon, acting in obedience to his own doctrine, " that January, 
the best mean to clear the way in the wood of suspicion is ^°1\ 
frankly to communicate with the party who is suspect if 
he is of a noble nature," (a) demanded the cause of this 
alienation, in an interview with the Queen, which he has 
thus related :■ — " Then, she remembering, belike, the con- 
tinual, and incessant, and confident speeches and courses 
that I had held on my lord's side, became utterly alienated 
from me, and for the space of at least three months, 
which was between Michaelmas and New-year's-tide fol- 
lowing, would not so much as look on me, but turned away 
from me with express and purposelike discountenance 
wheresoever she saw me ; and at such time as I desired to 
speak with her about law business, ever sent me forth very 

(«) See his Essay on Suspicion, vol. i. p. 113. 



lxxxvi LIFE OF BACON. 

slight refusals, insomuch as it is most true, that imme- 
diately after New-year's-tide I desired to speak with her; 
and being admitted to her, I dealt with her plainly, and 
said, Madam, I see you withdraw your favour from me, 
and now I have lost many friends for your sake, I shall 
lose you too : you have put me like one of those that the 
Frenchmen call enfans perdus, that serve on foot before 
horsemen, so have you put me into matters of envy without 
place, or without strength ; and I know at chess a pawn 
before the king is ever much played upon : a great many 
love me not, because they think I have been against my 
lord of Essex ; and you love me not, because you know I 
have been for him : yet will I never repent me that I have 
dealt in simplicity of heart towards you both, without 
respect of cautions to myself, and therefore vivus vidensque 
pereo. If I do break my neck, I shall do it in a manner 
as Master Dorrington did it, which walked on the battle- 
ments of the church many days, and took a view and survey 
where he should fall : and so, Madam, said I, I am not so 
simple, but that I take a prospect of mine overthrow, only 
I thought I would tell you so much, that you may know 
that it was faith, and not folly that brought me into it, and 
so I will pray for you. Upon which speeches of mine, 
uttered with some passion, it is true her majesty was 
exceedingly moved; and accumulated a number of kind 
and gracious words upon me, and willed me to rest upon 
this, Gratia mea sufficit, and a number of other sensible 
and tender words and demonstrations, such as more could 
not be; but as touching my lord of Essex, ne verbum 
quidem. Whereupon I departed, resting then determined 
to meddle no more in the matter, as I saw that it would 
overthrow me, and not be able to do him any good." 

Bacon's anguish, when he felt that the Queen's dis- 
pleasure was gradually taking the form most to be dreaded, 



Essex's treason. lxxxvii 

the cold and severe aspect of offended justice, can be con- 
ceived only by those who had seen his patient watchfulness 
over his wayward friend. Through the whole of his career, 
Bacon had anxiously pursued him, warning him, when it 
was possible, to prevent the commission of error ; excusing 
him to his royal mistress when the warning had proved 
fruitless; hoping al£ things, enduring all things; but the 
time seemed fast approaching, when, urged by his own 
wild passions, and the ruffian crew that beset him, he 
would commit some act which would place him out of the 
pale of the Queen's mercy. 

Irritated by the refusal of his patent, he readily listened 
to the pernicious counsels of a few needy and interested 
followers. Essex House had long been the resort of the 
factious and discontented ; secretly courting the Catholics, 
and openly encouraging the Puritans, Essex welcomed 
all who were obnoxious to the court. He applied to the 
King of Scotland for assistance, opened a secret corres- 
pondence with Ireland, and, calculating upon the support 
of a large body of the nobility, conspired to seize the 
Tower of London and the Queen herself, and marshalled 
his banditti to effect his purposes. 

The Queen, who had been apprised of the unusual con- 
course of persons to Essex House, was now fully acquainted 
with the extent of his treasons. In this emergency she 
acted with a firmness worthy of herself. She directed the 
Lord Mayor of London to take care that the citizens were 
ready, every man in his own house, to execute such com- 
mands as should be enjoined them. To Essex she sent 
the Lord Keeper, the Lord Chief Justice, and the Earl of 
Worcester, to learn the cause of this treasonable assembly. 
He said " that there was a plot against his life ; that some 
were suborned to stab him in his bed; that he and his 
friends were treacherously dealt with, and that they were 



lxXXvili LIFE OF BACON. 

determined on resistance." Deaf to all remonstrances, and 
urged by his faction, he seized and confined the officers of 
state, and, without plan, without arms, and with a small 
body of conspirators, he proceeded into the city, calling 
upon the citizens to join him, but calling in vain. Disap- 
pointed in his hopes, and proclaimed a traitor, after a 
fruitless attempt to defend himself, he was seized, and 
committed to the Tower. 

No man knew better, or felt more deeply the duties of 
friendship, than Bacon : he did not think friendships 
mere abstractions, metaphysical nothings, created for con- 
templation only; he felt, as he has taught, that friendship 
is the allay of our sorrows, the ease of our passions, the 
sanctuary of our calamities ;(a) that its fruits are peace in 
the affections, counsel in judgment, and active kindness; 
the heart, the head, and the hand. His friendship, there- 
fore, both in words and acts, Essex constantly experienced. 
In the wildest storm of his passions, while others suffered 
him to drive onward, the voice of the pilot might be heard, 
pointing out the sunken rocks which he feared would wreck 
him ; and when, at last, bound hand and foot, he was cast 
at the feet of the Queen, to undergo her utmost indigna- 
tion, he still walked with him in the midst of the fire, and 
would have borne him off unhurt, but for the evil spirits 
which beset him. 

It is impossible to form a correct judgment of the conduct 
of Bacon at this unfortunate juncture, without considering 
the difficulties of his situation, and his conflicting duties. 
Men of the highest blood and of the fairest character were 
implicated in the treasons of Essex : men who were like 
himself highly favoured by the Queen, and in offices of 
great trust and importance. Bacon's obligations to Essex, 

(ft) See J. Taylor's beautiful Essay on Friendship. 



Essex's treason. lxxxix 

and his constant efforts to serve him were well known; and 
the Queen had of late looked coldly upon him, and might 
herself suspect his fidelity ; for sad experience had proved 
to her that a monarch has no true friend, {a) In the 
interval between the commitment of Essex to the Tower, 
and his arraignment, Bacon must have become fully aware 
of the facts which would condemn Essex in the eyes of 
all good men, and render him amenable to the heaviest 
penalty of the law. Awakened as from a dream, with the 
startling truth that Essex was guilty as well as imprudent, 
he saw that all which he and others had deemed rashness 
was the result of a long concocted treason. In whatever 
light it could be viewed, the course which Essex had pur- 
sued was ruinous to Bacon. He had been bondsman again 
and again to the Queen for the love and duty of Essex ; 
and now he had the mortification of discovering that, in- 
stead of being open and entire with him, Essex had abused 
his friendship, and had assumed the dissembling attitude of 
humility and penitence, that he might more securely aim a 
blow at the very life of his royal benefactress. This double 
treachery entirely alienated the affections of Bacon. He 
saw no longer the high-souled, chivalric Essex, open as 
the day, lucid as truth, giving both faults and virtues to 
the light, redeeming in the eyes of all men the bounty of 



(a) This day senight her Majestie was at Blackfriars, to grace the mar- 
riage of the Lord Herbert and his wife. The Bride mett the Queen at the 
Waterside, where my Lord Cobham had provided a Lectica, made like 
half a litter, wherein she was carried to my Lady Russell's by 6 Knights. 
After supper the Mask came in, as I writ in my last ; and delicate it was, 
to see 8 Ladies soe prettily and richly attired. Mrs. Fitton leade, and after 
they had donne all their own ceremonies, these 8 Ladys Maskers choose 
8 Ladies more to dawnce the measures. Mrs. Fitton went to the Queen 
and woed her to dawnce ; her Majesty asked what she was ; Affection, she 
said. Affection ! said the Queen, Affection is false. Yet her Majestie 
rose and dawnced. — See also note 3 T at the end. Sidney Papers. 



XC LIFE OF BACON. 

the crown; he saw only an ungrateful man, whom the 
fiend ambition had possessed, and knew that the name of 
that fiend was " Legion." 
19th Feb. On the 19th of February Essex and Southampton were 
arraigned, and, upon the trial, one of the conspirators, 
allured by the hope of life, made a full disclosure of all 
their treasons, (a) 

Unable to deny facts clearly proved against him, Essex 
could insist only upon his motives, which he urged with 
the utmost confidence. He repeated his former assertion, 
that there was a plot against his life, and that Cecil, 
Cobham, and Raleigh had driven him to desperate mea- 
sures. Bacon, who appeared as one of the counsel for the 
crown, resisted these imputations, and said, " It is evident, 
my lord of Essex, that you had planted in your heart a 
pretence against the government of your country; and, as 
Pisistratus, calculating upon the affections of the people, 
shewed himself wounded in the streets of Athens, so you 
entered the city with the vain hope that the citizens would 
join in your rebellion. Indeed, my lord, all that you have 
said, or can say in these matters are but shadows, and 
therefore methinks it were your best course to confess, and 
not to justify." 

Essex here interrupted him, and said, " The speech of 
Mr. Bacon calls upon me to defend myself; and be it known, 
my lords, I call upon him to be a witness for me, for he 
being a daily courtier, and having free access to her majesty, 
undertook to go to the Queen in my behalf, and did write 
a letter most artificially, which was subscribed with my 
name, also another letter was drawn by him to occasion 
that letter with others that should come from his brother, 
Mr. Anthony Bacon, both which he shewed the Queen, 

(a) See note 4 F at the end, for an account of the trial . 



TRIAL OF ESSEX. XC1 

and in my letter he did plead for me feelingly against 
those enemies, and pointed them out as particularly as was 
possible ; which letters I know Mr. Secretary Cecil (a) hath 
seen, and by them it will appear what conceit Mr. Bacon 
held of me, so different from what he here coloureth and 
pleadeth against me/' (b) 

To this charge, urged in violation of the most sacred 
confidence, which Essex well knew would render Bacon 
obnoxious to the Queen, and suspected by all parties, he 
instantly and indignantly replied, " My lord, I spent more 
hours to make you a good subject, than upon any man in 
the world besides ; but since you have stirred up this point, 
I dare warrant you this letter will not blush to see the light, 
for I did but perform the part of an honest man, and ever 
laboured to have done you good if it might have been, and 
to no other end ; for what I intended for your good was 
wished from the heart, without touch of any man's honour." 
After this unjustifiable disclosure, which severed the last 
link between them, Bacon only spoke once, and with a 
bitterness that showed how deeply he was wounded, (c) 



{a) Essex added to this charge against Bacon a charge calculated, if 
true, to ruin Cecil, whom he asserted to have said, that the Infanta of 
Spain had as much right to the crown of England as any of her competi- 
tors : a charge refuted by Cecil, with the spirit and dignity of conscious 
integrity. He said to the Earl of Essex, " For wit, wherewith you certainly 
abound, I am your inferior; I am inferior to you in nobility, yet noble I 
am ; a military man I am not, and herein you go before me : yet doth my 
innocency protect me ; and in this court I stand an upright man, and you 
a delinquent." 

(b) See ante, p. lxxix. 

(c) Years after the trial he complained of this injurious treatment to the 
Earl of Devonshire, and Camden says, " Surely all this was done like a 
friend, while he studied to put Essex in grace with the Queen." Camden 
concludes the narrative with these words : " These things whereat I was 
present myself, I have with uncorrupted fidelity compendiously related, and 
have willingly omitted nothing." Apology, p. 170, and Camden, p. 186. 



XC11 LIFE OF BACON. 

Through the whole trial Essex conducted himself with 
courage and firmness worthy of a better cause. Though 
assailed by the lawyers with much rancour, and harassed 
by the deepest search into his offences ; though harshly 
questioned by his adversaries, and betrayed by his confede- 
rates, he stood at bay, like some noble animal, who fears 
not his pursuers, nor the death that awaits him ; and when 
at last the deliberate voices of his fellow peers proclaimed 
him guilty, he heard the sentence with manly composure, 
and, without one thought of himself, sought only to save 
the life of his friend. 

Bacon having obtained a remission of the sentence in 
favour of six persons (a) who were implicated, made one 
more effort to serve this unhappy nobleman. He says, " for 
the time which passed, I mean between the arraignment and 
my lord's suffering, I was but once with the Queen, at what 
time though I durst not deal directly for my lord as things 
then stood ; yet generally I did both commend her majesty's 
mercy, terming it to her as an excellent balm that did con- 
tinually distil from her sovereign hands, and made an ex- 
cellent odour in the senses of her people : and not only so, 
but I took hardness to extenuate, not the fact, for that I 
durst not, but the danger, telling her that if some base or 
cruel minded persons had entered into such an action, it 
might have caused much blood and combustion : but it ap- 
peared well they were such as knew not how to play the 
malefactors, and some other words which I now omit." 
25th Feb. All exertions however proved fruitless, for after much 
fluctuation on the Queen's part, (b) arising from causes 
variously stated by historians, Essex, on the 25th of 
February, was executed in the Tower. 

The Queen having been coldly received by the citizens, 

(a) Vol. vi. p. 273. (b) Camden, p. 187. 



1601. 



ACCOUNT OF THE TREASON. XC111 

after the death of Essex, or moved by some other cause, 
was desirous that a full statement should be made of the 
whole course of his treasons, and commanded Bacon to 
prepare it. He says, " her majesty taking a liking of my 
pen, upon that which I had done before concerning the 
proceeding at York House, and likewise upon some other 
declarations, which in former times by her appointment I 
put in writing, commanded me to pen that book, (b) which 
was published for the better satisfaction of the world : which 
I did but so, as never secretary had more particular, and 
express directions and instructions in every point how to 
guide my hand in it : and not only so, but after that I had 
made a first draught thereof and propounded it to certain 
principal councillors, by her majesties appointment, it was 
perused, weighed, censured, altered, and made almost a new 
writing, according to their lordships better consideration : 
wherein their lordships and myself both were as religious 
and curious of truth, as desirous of satisfaction : and myself 
indeed gave only words and form of style in pursuing their 
direction. And after it had passed their allowance, it was 
again exactly perused by the Queen herself, and some alte- 
rations made again by her appointment : after it was set to 
print, the Queen, who as she was excellent in great matters, 
so she was exquisite in small, noted that I could not forget 
my ancient respect to my Lord of Essex, in terminer him 
ever my Lord of Essex, my Lord of Essex almost in every 
page of the book, which she thought not fit, but would have 
it made, Essex, or the late Earl of Essex : whereupon of 
force it was printed de novo, and the first copies suppressed 
by her peremptory commandment." He concludes the 
whole with these words, " had I been as well believed 
either by the Queen or by my lord, as I was well heard by 

(/>) See vol. vi. p. 274. 



XC1V LIFE OF BACON. 

them both, both my lord had been fortunate, and so had 
myself in his fortune/' 

Happier would it have been for the Queen, and her ill- 
fated favorite, had they listened to his warning voice. 
Essex paid the forfeiture of his unrestrained passions by 
the stroke of the axe, but Elizabeth suffered the lingering 
torture of a broken heart; the offended majesty of England 
triumphed, she " Queened it nobly," but the envenomed 
asp was in her bosom ; she sunk under the consciousness 
of abused confidence, of ill-bestowed favors, of unrequited 
affection : the very springs of kindness were poisoned : 
suspicious of all around her, and openly deserted by those 
who hastened to pay court to her successor, her health 
visibly declined, and the last blow was given to her by 
some disclosure made on the deathbed of the Countess 
of Nottingham. Various rumours have arisen regarding 
this interview, and the cause of the Queen's grief; but the 
fatal result has never been doubted. From that day, 
refusing the aid of medicine, or food, or rest, she sat upon 
the floor of her darkened chamber, and gave herself up to 
the most unrestrained sorrow. The spirit that had kept a 
world in awe was utterly prostrate ; and, after a splendid 
and prosperous reign of forty-five years, desolate, afflicted, 
March 24, and weary of existence, she lingered till the 24th of March, 
1603. on wn i c h day she died, (g) 

Bacon's respect for the Queen was more manifested after 
her death, and even after his own death, than during her 
life, (a) 

In one of his wills (b) he desires, that, whatever part of 
his manuscripts may be destroyed, his eulogy " In felicem 
memoriam Elizabethan" may be preserved and published : 

(g) See note 4 G at the end. (a) See note 4 H at the end. 

(b) Baconiana. 



DEATH OF THE QUEEN. XCV 

and, soon after the accession of James to the throne, he 
thus speaks of the Queen. 

" She was a princess that if Plutarch were now alive to 
write lives by parallels, would trouble him, I think, to find 
for her a parallel amongst women. This lady was endued 
with learning in her sex singular and rare even amongst 
masculine princes ; whether we speak of learning, lan- 
guage, or of science, modern or ancient, divinity or huma- 
nity: and, unto the very last year of her life, she was accus- 
tomed to appoint set hours for reading, scarcely any young 
student in an university more daily or more duly. As for 
her government, I assure myself, I shall not exceed, if I 
do affirm that this part of the island never had forty-five 
years of better times, and yet not through the calmness of 
the season, but through the wisdom of her regimen. For 
if there be considered of the one side, the truth of religion 
established; the constant peace and security; the good 
administration of justice; the temperate use of the prero- 
gative, not slackened, nor much strained; the flourishing 
state of learning, suitable to so excellent a patroness ; the 
convenient estate of wealth and means, both of crown and 
subject ; the habit of obedience, and the moderation of dis- 
contents ; and there be considered, on the other side, the 
differences of religion, the troubles of neighbour countries, 
the ambition of Spain, and opposition of Rome ; and then 
that she was solitary and of herself; these things I say 
considered, I could not have chosen a more remarkable 
instance of the conjunction of learning in the prince, with 
felicity in the people/' 

(Etiti of ^a^t I. 



LIFE OF BACON. 

PART II. 

from tlje 2Deatf) of <£lt$abetf) to tf)e 2Deatf) of Bacon, 



CHAPTER I. 

FROM THE ACCESSION OF JAMES TILL THE PUBLICATION 
OF THE WISDOM OF THE ANCIENTS, 

1603 to 1610. 

Upon the death of the Queen, Bacon had every thing to 1603. 
expect from the disposition of her successor, who was a 
lover of letters, was desirous to be considered the patron of 
learning and learned men, was well acquainted with the 
attainments of Bacon, and his reputation both at home and 
abroad, and was greatly prepossessed in his favour by his 
brother Anthony, who was much esteemed by the King, (a) 
But neither the consciousness of his own powers or of the 
King's discernment rendered Bacon inert or passive. He 
used all his influence, both in England and in Scotland, to 
insure the protection of James, (b) He wrote to the Earl 

(a) See Rymer, vol.xvi. p. 596, and note TTT at the end. 

(6) He wrote to Mr. Foules, see vol. xii. page 114; to Sir Thomas 
Challoner, see vol. xii. page 113; to his friend, Tobie Mathew, see vol. 
xii. page 230; to Dr. Morrison, a Scottish physician, see vol. xiii. page 
61 ; to Lord Kinlose, see vol. xii. page 101. 

VOL. xv. h 



XCV111 LIFE OF BACON. 

of Northumberland, (c) and to Lord Southampton, (c) who 
was imprisoned and tried with Essex, using these remark- 
able words, " I may safely be that to you now, which I 
was truly before." 

Upon the approach of the King he addressed his majesty 
in a letter written in the style of the times :(«) and he 



(c) He wrote to the Earl of Northumberland, see vol. xii. pages 103 and 
116 ; to Mr. Kempe, see vol. xii. page 25 ; to Mr. Davis, see vol. xii. page 
115; and it is remarkable that he applied to the Earl of Southampton, 
the fellow prisoner and convict with Lord Essex. In his letter to Mr. 
Kempe he says, " My lord of Southampton expecteth release by the next 
dispatch, and is already much visited, and much well wished. There is 
continual posting by men of good quality towards the king; the rather, I 
think, because this spring time it is but a kind of sport. It is hoped that 
as the state here hath performed the part of good attorneys, to deliver the 
King quiet possession of his kingdoms, so the King will re-deliver them 
quiet possession of their places ; rather filling places void, than removing 
men placed. So, &c." 

The following is his letter to Lord Southampton : 

" It may please your Lordship, — I would have been very glad to have 
presented my humble service to your lordship by my attendance, if I could 
have foreseen that it should not have been unpleasing unto you. And 
therefore, because I would be sure to commit no error, I chose to write ; 
assuring your lordship, how little soever it may seem credible to you at 
first, yet it is as true as a thing that God knoweth ; that this great change 
hath wrought in me no other change towards your lordship than this, that 
I may safely be that to you now, which I was truly before. And so craving 
no other pardon, than for troubling you with my letter, I do not now begin 
to be, but continue to be your Lordship's humble and much devoted 
1603. Fr. Bacon." 

See vol. xii. page 115. 

(a) It may please your most excellent Majesty, 

It is observed by some, upon a place in the Canticles, 
Ego, sum Jios campi, et I ilium couvallium, that, a dispari, 
it is not said, Ego sum Jios horti, et lilium montium ; 
because the majesty of that person is not inclosed for a 
few, nor appropriated to the great. And yet, notwith- 



APPROACH OF THE KING. XC1X 

submitted to the Earl of Northumberland, for the King's 
consideration, a proclamation, recommending " the union 
of England and Scotland ; attention to the sufferings of 

standing, this royal virtue of access, which both nature 
and judgment have planted in your majesty's mind, as the 
portal of all the rest, could not of itself, my imperfections 
considered, have animated me to make oblation of myself 
immediately to your majesty, had it not been joined with 
an habit of the like liberty which I enjoyed with my late 
dear sovereign mistress; a princess happy in all things 
else, but most happy in such a successor. And yet farther, 
and more nearly, I was not a little encouraged, not only 
upon a supposal, that unto your majesty's sacred ear, open 
to the air of all virtues, there might perhaps have come 
some small breath of the good memory of my father, so 
long a principal counsellor in your kingdom; but also a 
more particular knowledge of the infinite devotion and 
incessant endeavours, beyond the strength of his body, 
and the nature of the times, which appeared in my good 
brother, Mr. Anthony Bacon, towards your majesty's ser- 
vice; and were, on your majesty's part, through your 
singular benignity, by many most gracious and lively signi- 
fications and favours accepted and acknowledged, beyond 
the merit of any thing he could effect : which endeavours 
and duties, for the most part, were common to myself 
w 7 ith him, though by design, as between brethren, dis- 
sembled. And therefore, most high and mighty king, my 
most dear and dread sovereign lord, since now the corner- 
stone is laid of the mightiest monarchy in Europe; and 
that God above, who hath ever a hand in bridling the 
floods and motions both of the seas and of people's hearts, 
hath by the miraculous and universal consent, the more 
strange, because it proceedeth from such diversity of 
causes, in your coming in, given a sign and token of great 
happiness in the continuance of your reign; I think there 



C LIFE OF BACON. 

unhappy Ireland ; freedom of trade and the suppression of 
bribery and corruption; with the assurance, that every 
place and service that was fit for the honour or good of the 
commonwealth should be filled, and no man's virtue left 
idle, unemployed, or unrewarded, and every good ordi- 
nance and constitution, for the amendment of the estate 
and times, be revived and put in execution." (d) 

is no subject of your majesty's, which loveth this island, 
and is not hollow or unworthy, whose heart is not set on 
fire, not only to bring you peace-offerings, to make you 
propitious ; but to sacrifice himself a burnt-offering or 
holocaust to your majesty's service : amongst which number 
no man's fire shall be more pure and fervent than mine ; 
but how far forth it shall blaze out, that resteth in your 
majesty's employment. So, thirsting after the happiness 
of kissing your royal hand, I continue ever, &c. 1603. 

(d) Sir Francis Bacon to the Earl of Northumberland, concerning a 
Proclamation upon the King's entry. 

It may please your Lordship, — I do hold it a thing formal and neces- 
sary, for the King to forerun his coming, be it never so speedy, with some 
gracious declaration for the cherishing, entertaining, and preparing of men's 
affections. For which purpose, I have conceived a draught, it being a 
thing to me familiar, in my mistress her times, to have used my pen in 
politic writings of satisfaction. The use of this may be in two sorts : first, 
properly, if your lordship think convenient to shew the King any such 
draught, because the veins and pulses of this state cannot but be known 
here ; which if your lordship should, then I would desire your lordship to 
withdraw my name, and only signify that you gave some heads of direction 
of such a matter to one of whose style and pen you had some opinion. 
The other collateral, that though your lordship make no other use of it, 
yet it is a kind of portraiture of that which I think worthy to be advised by 
your lordship to the King, to express himself according to those points 
which are therein conceived, and perhaps more compendious and signifi- 
cant than if I had set them down in articles. I would have attended your 
lordship, but for some little physic I took. To-morrow morning I will 
wait on you. So I ever continue, &c. Fr. Bacon. 

See vol. xii. p. 102, and vol. vii. p. 173, for the proclamation. 



KNIGHTHOOD. CI 

Soon after the arrival of James, which was on the 7th of 
May, Bacon, having had an audience, and a promise of 
private access, thus describes the King to the Earl of 
Northumberland : " Your lordship shall find a prince the 
farthest from vain glory that may be, and rather like a 
prince of the ancient form than of the latter time. His 
speech is swift and cursory, and in the full dialect of his 
country; in speech of business, short; in speech of dis- 
course, large. He afTecteth popularity by gracing such as 
he hath heard to be popular, and not by any fashions of 
his own. He is thought somewhat general in his favours ; 
and his virtue of access is rather, because he is much 
abroad and in press, than that he giveth easy audience. 
He hasteneth to a mixture of both kingdoms and occasions, 
faster perhaps than policy will well bear. I told your 
lordship once before, that methought his majesty rather 
asked counsel of the time past, than of the time to come : 
but it is yet early to ground any settled opinion." (m) 

The title of knighthood had hitherto been considered an 
especial mark of royal favour ; but the King, who perceived 
that the English gentry were willing to barter their gold 
for an empty honour, was no less ready to barter his 
honours for their gold. A general summons was, there- 
fore, issued for all persons possessing £40 a year in land(ra) 
either to accept this title, or to compound with the King's 
commissioners; and on the 23rd, the day of his corona- 
tion, not less than three hundred gentlemen received the 
honour of knighthood, amongst whom was Sir Francis 
Bacon, who thought that the title might gratify the 



(m) See vol. xii. p. 48. 

n) Hume, who has shown great tenderness to the character of James 
upon many occasions, is quite silent as to this extraordinary expedient to 
raise money. See Progresses of James, 203. 



JEt. 44. 



Cll LIFE OF BACON. 

daughter of Alderman Barriham, whom he soon after mar- 
ried, (e) 
1604. In the opening of the year 1604 it was publicly an- 

nounced that a parliament would be assembled early in 
the spring; and never could any parliament meet for the 
consideration of more eventful questions than at that mo- 
ment agitated the public mind. It did not require Bacon's 
sagacity to perceive this, or, looking forward, to foresee 
the approaching storm. Revolutions are sudden to the 
unthinking only. Political disturbances happen not without 
their warning harbingers. Murmurs, not loud but porten- 
tous, ever precede these convulsions of the moral world : (a) 
murmurs which were heard by Bacon not the less audibly 
from the apparent tranquillity with which James ascended 
the throne. " Tempests of state," he says, "are commonly 
greatest when things grow to equality; as natural tern- 

(e) Bacon's sentiments of the value of knighthood may be seen by the 
following letters : 

To Robert, Lord Cecil. 

It may please your good Lordship, — Lastly, for this divulged and almost 
prostituted title of knighthood, I could without charge, by your honour's 
mean, be content to have it, both because of this late disgrace, and because 
I have three new knights in my mess in Gray's Inn commons ; and be- 
cause I have found out an alderman's daughter, a handsome maiden, to 
my liking. So as if your honour will find the time, I will come to the 
court from Gorhambury upon any warning. So I remain your Lordship's 
most bounden, Fit. Bacon. 

3rd July, 1603. 

To Robert, Lord Cecil. 

It may please your good Lordship, — For my knighthood, I wish the 
manner might be such as might grace me, since the matter will not : I 
mean, that I might not be merely gregarious in a troop. The coronation 
is at hand. It may please your lordship to let me hear from you speedily. 
So I continue your Lordship's ever much bounden, Fr. Bacon. 
From Gorhambury, this 16th of July, 1603. 

See some observations respecting Lady Bacon, in note H H H at the end . 

(a) See Coleridge's Friend, vol. ii. p. 243. 



COMMENCEMENT OF PARLIAMENT. Clll 

pests are greatest about the equinox ; and as there are 
certain hollow blasts of wind and secret swellings of seas 
before a tempest, so are there in states : 

■ Ille etiam csecos instare tumultus 



Ssepe monet, fraudesque et operta tumescere bella." («) 

These secret swellings and hollow blasts, which arise from 
the conflicts between power, tenacious in retaining its au- 
thority, and knowledge, advancing to resist it, are materials 
certain to explode, unless judiciously dispersed. Of this 
Bacon constantly warned the community, by recommending 
the admission of gradual reform. " In your innovations," 
he said, " follow the example of time, which irmovateth 
greatly, but quietly." (b) — The advances of nature are all 
gradual: scarce discernible in their motions, but only 
visible in their issue. The grass grows and the shadow 
moves upon the dial unperceived until we reflect upon 
their progress. 

These admonitions have always been disregarded or re- 
sisted by governments, and, wanting this safety valve, 
states have been periodically exposed to convulsion. In 
England this appeared at Hunnymede in the reign of John, 
and in the subversion of the Pope's authority in the reign 
of Henry the Eighth. 

When the spirit of reform has once been raised, its pro- 
gress is not easily stayed. Through the ruins of catholic 
superstition various defects were discovered in other parts 
of the fabric : and the people, having been spirit-broken 
during the reign of Henry, and lulled during the reign 
of Elizabeth, reform now burst forth with accumulated 
impetuosity. So true is the doctrine of Bacon, that "when 
any of the four pillars of government are mainly shaken, 

(a) Essay on Sedition, vol. i. p. 44. 
(6) Essay on Innovations, vol. i. p. 82. 



CIV LIFE OF BACON. 

or weakened, which are religion, justice, counsel, and 
treasure, men had need to pray for fair weather." (a) 

The state of Bacon's mind at this period may be easily 
conceived. The love of order (b) and the love of improve- 
ment, apparently not really opposed to each other, were his 
ruling passions : and his mode of improvement was the same 
in all science, (V) natural or human, (d) by experiment, 
and only by experiment ; by proceeding with the greatest 
caution, and by remembering that, after the most careful 
research, we may be in the greatest error: "for who will 
take upon him, when the particulars which a man knows and 
which he hath mentioned, appear only on one side, there 
may not lurk some particular which is altogether repugnant: 
as if Samuel should have rested in those sons of Jesse which 
were brought before him in the house, and should not have 
sought David, who was absent in the field." (e) He never 
presumed to act until he had tried all things : never used 
one of Briareus's hundred hands, until he had opened all 
Argus's hundred eyes.(f) He acted through life upon his 
father's favourite maxim, " stay a little that we may make 
an end the sooner." 

This was his general mode of proceeding, which, when 
the experiment was attended with difficulty, generated more 
caution ; and he well knew that, of all experiments, state 
alterations are the most difficult, the most fraught with 
danger. 

Zealous as he was for all improvement; believing, as he 
did, in the omnipotence of knowledge, that " the spirit of 
man is as the lamp of God, wherewith he searcheth the 
inwardness of all secrets '"(g) and, branding the idolaters of 

(a) Essay on Sedition, vol. i. p 44. 

(b) Vol. ii. p. 63. Adv. of Learning. 

(c) See postea, under Novum Organum. 

(d) This is Bacon's division. (/) Essay of Delays, vol.i. p. 73. 

(e) Adv. of Learn, vol. ii. p. 180. (g) Adv. of Learning, vol. ii. p. 11. 






COMMENCEMENT OF PARLIAMENT. CV 

old times as a scandal to the new, he says, " It is good not 
to try experiments in states, except the necessity be urgent, 
or the utility evident : and well to beware that it be the 
reformation that draweth on the change, and not desire 
of change that pretendeth the reformation : that novelty, 
though it be not rejected, yet be always suspected; and, 
as the scripture saith, ' that we make a stand upon the 
ancient way, and then look about us, and discover what is 
the straight and right way, and so to walk in itf(q) always 
remembering that there is a difference in innovations, 
between arts and civil affairs. In civil affairs, a change, 
even for the better, is to be suspected, through fear of dis- 
turbance : because they depend upon authority, consent, 
reputation, and opinion, and not upon demonstration ; but 
arts and sciences should be like mines, resounding on all 
sides with new works and further progress." (r) 

Such was the state of his mind upon entering into 
public life at the commencement of the parliament, which 
assembled on the 1 9th of March, 1604, when having already 
made some progress in the King's affections, (s) he was 

(q) Essay on Innovations, vol. i. p. 82. 

(r) Nov. Organum, Aph. 90. vol. ix. 

(s) Mr. Constable was Bacon's brother-in-law; and was, as it seems 
knighted on March 14 (James's Progresses, 322), and knighted upon the 
interposition of Bacon, as appears by the following letter: 

A Letter to Mr. Murray, of the King's bedchamber. 
Mr. Murray, — It is very true, that his majesty, most graciously at my 
humble request, knighted the last Sunday my brother-in-law, a towardly 
young gentleman; for which favour I think myself more bound to his 
majesty than for the benefit of ten knights; and to tell you truly, my 
meaning was not, that the suit of this other gentleman, Mr. Temple, should 
have been moved in my name. For I should have been unwilling to have 
moved his majesty for more than one at once, though many times in his 
majesty's courts of justice, if we move once for our friends, we are allowed 
to move again for our fee. But indeed my purpose was, that you might 
have been pleased to have moved it as for myself. Nevertheless, since it; 



CV1 LIFE OF BACON. 

returned both for St. Albans and for Ipswich, (a) which 
borough he elected to represent ; and, at this early period, 
so oreat a favourite was he with the house, that some of 
the members proposed him as Speaker, (b) 

On the 22nd of March, the King first addressed the 
parliament, recommending to their consideration the union 
of the two kingdoms; the termination of religious discon- 
tents ; and the improvement of the law. (a) 

Upon the return of the Commons to the lower house, the 
storm commenced. Prayers had scarcely been ended, and 
the house settled, when one member proposed the imme- 
diate consideration of the general abuse and grievance of 
purveyors; — the burthen and servitude to the subjects of the 
kingdom, attendant upon the wardship of children;' — the 
oppression of monopolies ; — the abuses of the Exchequer, 
and the dispensation of penal statutes. After this proposal, 
received by an expressive silence, another member called 
the attention of the house to what he termed three main 
grievances: the burthen, charge, and vexation of the com- 
missaries' courts; — the suspension of learned and grave 
ministers for preaching against popish doctrine ; — and de- 
populations by inclosure. (a) 

To consider these weighty subjects a select committee 
of the house was appointed, including Bacon as one of 
the members. This committee immediately entered upon 

is so far gone, and that the gentleman's friends are in some expectation of 
success, I leave it to your kind regard what is further to be done, as willing 
to give satisfaction to those which have put me in trust, and loth on the 
other side to press above good manners. And so, with my loving com- 
mendations, I remain, yours, &c. — 1603. 

(a) Commons' Journals. See note J J J at the end. 

(6) Here, after some silence, the names of others were muttered ; as of 
Sir Francis Hastings, Sir Henry Nevill, Sir Francis Bacon, Sir Edward 
Hobby, Sir Henry Mountague, the Recorder of London, and others ; but 
the more general voice ran upon Sir Edward Phelips, who thereupon stood 
up, and used some speech to excuse and disable himself, to this effect, &c. 



COMMENCEMENT OF TROUBLES. CVll 

their inquiries, and, so ready were the parties with their 
evidence, and so active the members in their proceedings, 
that on the 26th Bacon made his report to the house of 
the result of their investigations, (a) 

The political discontent, thus first manifested, increased 
yearly under the reign of James, and having brought his 
son to the scaffold, continued till the combustible matter 
was dispersed. " Cromwell," it was said, " became Pro- 
tector, because the people of England were tired of kings, 
and Charles was restored because they were weary of 
Protectors." Such are the consequences of neglecting 
gradual reform. 

During the whole of the conflicts in the commencement 
of this stormy session, Bacon's exertions were unremitting. 
He spoke in every debate. He sat upon twenty-nine com- 
mittees, (a) many of them appointed for the consideration 
of the important questions agitated at that eventful time. 
He was selected to attend the conferences of the privy 
council ; to report the result ; and to prepare various re- 
monstrances and addresses ; was nominated as a mediator 
between the Commons and the Lords ; and chosen by the 
Commons to present to the King a petition touching pur- 
veyors, (c) 

(a) Commons' Journals. 

(c) He said : " The message I now bring your majesty 
concerns the manifold abuses of purveyors. In this 
grievance, to which the poor people are most exposed, 
and men of quality less, we shall require your majesty 
to conceive that you hear the very groans and complaints 
of your commons more truly than by representation, for 
there is no grievance in your kingdom so general, so con- 
tinual, so sensible, and so bitter to the common subject, 
as this whereof we now speak, assuring ourselves that 
never king reigned who had better notions of head and 
notions of heart for the good and comfort of his loving 



CV111 LIFE OF BACON. 

To his address, clothed in language the most respectful, 
yet distinctly pointing out what was expected by the people, 
the King listened with the patience due from a sovereign 
to his suffering and oppressed subjects ; and, instead of the 
displeasure felt by Elizabeth at his firm and honest bold- 
ness, (a) he received it kindly, and replied to it graciously. 

Many of his speeches are fortunately preserved : (<r) they 
are all distinguished for their fitness for the hearers and 
the occasion, their knowledge of affairs, and their pithy, 
weighty eloquence. 

The King had hitherto continued to employ Bacon, in 
the same manner in which he had served the late Queen; 
but he now thought fit to shew him higher marks of favour 
than he had received from her majesty; and accordingly, 
on the 25th of August, 1604, constituted him by patent 
his counsel learned in the law, with a fee of forty pounds 
a year, which is said to have been a " grace scarce known 
before ; (b) and he granted him the same day, by another 
patent under the great seal, a pension of sixty pounds a 

subjects. The abuses of purveyors are of three sorts : 1st. 
They take in kind what they ought not to take. 2. They 
take in quantity a greater proportion than comes to your 
majesty's use. 3. They take it in an unlawful manner; 
instead of takers they become taxors, imposing and extort- 
ing divers sums of money, sometimes in gross, sometimes 
as stipends annually paid to be free from their oppressors. 
They take trees, which they cannot do by law, which are 
the beauty, shelter, and countenance of men's houses, and 
that under the value; nay, they are grown to that extremity 
that they will take double poundage, once when the de- 
benture is made, and again when the money is paid." — 
See vol. vi. p. 3, for the whole speech. 

(a) Ante, p. xxxi. (x) See vols. v. and vi. 

(b) See Rawley's Life. 



king's counsel. cix 

year, for special services received from his brother Anthony 
Bacon and himself, (b) 

It must not be supposed that either political altercations 
or legal promotions diverted his attention from the acqui- 
sition and diffusion of knowledge. He knew well the 
relative worth of politics and philosophy. 

His love of knowledge was never checked, perhaps it 
was increased by his occupations in active life. " We 
judge," he says, " that mankind may conceive some hopes 
from our example, which we offer, not by way of ostenta- 
tion, but because it may be useful. If any one therefore 
should despair, let him consider a man as much employed 
in civil affairs as any other of his age, a man of no great 
share of health, who must therefore have lost much time, 
and yet, in this undertaking he is the first that leads the 
way, unassisted by any mortal, and steadfastly entering 
the true path that was absolutely untrod before, and sub- 
mitting his mind to things, may somewhat have advanced 
the design." (d) Politics employed, but the love of know- 
ledge occupied his mind, (e) It advanced like the river, 
which is said to flow without mingling her streams with 
the waters of the lake through which it passes, (f) 

During the vacation of this year, he escaped from exer- 
tions respecting the Union, (g) to Eton, where he conversed 
on the subject of education with his friend, Sir Henry 
Saville, then provost of the college ; to whom, upon his 
return, he wrote the following letter : 

To Sir Henry Saville. 
Coming back from your invitation at Eton, where I had 
refreshed myself with company, which I loved ; I fell into 

(b) See note TTT at the end. (d) Nov. Org. Aph. v. 

(e) See a letter of Bp. Hall's on the Pleasure of Study and Contemplation, 

(f) Fuller's Holy State. Essay of Company, b. iii. c. 5. 

(g) See his letter to Sir Robert Cotton, dated 3th Sept. 1604* 



CX LIFE OF BACON. 

a consideration of that part of policy whereof philosophy 
speaketh too much, and laws too little; and that is, of 
education of youth. Whereupon fixing my mind awhile, 
I found straightways, and noted, even in the discourses of 
philosophers, which are so large in this argument, a strange 
silence concerning one principal part of that subject. For 
as touching the framing and seasoning of youth to moral 
virtues, (as tolerance of labours, continency from pleasures, 
obedience, honour, and the like,) they handle it; but 
touching the improvement and helping of the intellectual 
powers, as of conceit, memory, and judgment, they say 
nothing ; whether it were, that they thought it to be a 
matter wherein nature only prevailed, or that they intended 
it, as referred to the several and proper arts, which teach 
the use of reason and speech. 

But for the former of these two reasons, howsoever it 
pleaseth them to distinguish of habits and powers ; the ex- 
perience is manifest enough, that the motions and faculties 
of the wit and memory may be not only governed and 
guided, but also confirmed and enlarged, by customs and 
exercise daily applied : as if a man exercise shooting, he 
shall not only shoot nearer the mark, but also draw a 
stronger bow. (a) And as for the latter, of comprehending 
these precepts within the arts of logic and rhetoric ; if it 
be rightly considered, their office is distinct altogether from 
this point ; for it is no part of the doctrine of the use or 
handling of an instrument, to teach how to whet or grind 
the instrument to give it a sharp edge, or how to quench 
it, or otherwise, whereby to give it a stronger temper. 

Wherefore, finding this part of knowledge not broken, I 
have, but " tanquam aliud agens," entered into it, and salute 
you with it; dedicating it, after the ancient manner, first 
as to a dear friend, and then as to an apt person ; for as 

(a) The same remark will be found in one of his Essays. 



EDUCATION. CXI 

much as you have both place to practise it, and j udgment 
and leisure to look deeper into it than I have done. Herein 
you must call to mind, "Api^ov fxep vStip. Though the argu- 
ment be not of great height and dignity, nevertheless it 
is of great and universal use. And yet I do not see why, 
to consider it rightly, that should not be a learning of 
height which teacheth to raise the highest and worthiest 
part of the mind. But, howsoever that be, if the world 
take any light and use by this writing, I will the gratula- 
tion be to the good friendship and acquaintance between 
us two. And so recommend you to God's divine protection. 

With this letter he presented a tract upon " Helps to 
the Intellectual Powers," which contains similar observa- 
tions upon the importance of knowledge and improvement 
of the Body.(d) 

From these suggestions, the germ of his opinions upon 
the same subject in the Advancement of Learning, it 
appears that he considered the object of education to be 
knowledge and improvement of the body and of the mind. 

How far society has, after the lapse of two centuries, 
concurred with him in these opinions, and, if he is not in 
error, how far we have acted upon his suggestions, may 
deserve a moment's consideration. 

Bacon arranges knowledge respecting the body(e) into 

rl. The preservation, 
i. Health, -j 2. The Cure of diseases. 

^3. The prolongation of life. 

, fl. Athletic. 

11. strength.-! 

[2. Gymnastics. 

in. Beauty. 

^ iv. Pleasure. 

(d) See vol. i. p. 337. (e) Adv. of Learning, vol. ii. p. 158. 



CXll LIFE OF BACON. 

These subjects considered of importance by Bacon; by 
the ancients, and by all physiologsts, (b) do not form any 
part of our University education. The formation of bodily 
habits, upon which our happiness and utility must be 
founded, are left to chance, to the customs of our parents, 
or the practices of our first college associates. All nature 
strives for life and for health. The smallest moss cannot be 
moved without disturbing myriads of living beings. If any 
part of the animal frame is injured, the whole system is 
active in restoring it : but man is daily cut off or withered 
in his prime ; and, at the age of fifty, we stand amidst the 
tombs of our early friends. 

At some future time the admonition of Bacon,, that 
" although the world, to a christian travelling to the land 
of promise, be as it were a wilderness, yet that our shoes 
and vestments be less worn away while we sojourn in this 
wilderness, is to be esteemed a gift coming from divine 
goodness," may, perhaps, be considered deserving attention. 

Bacon arranges knowledge respecting the mind into 

'1. Invention. 

r i. The understanding. < ' » 

3. Memory. 



G 



.4. Tradition. 
The image of good. 



1 2. The culture of the mind. 



In the English universities there is not, except by a few 
lectures, some meagre explanations of logic, and some 
indirect instruction by mathematics upon mental fixedness, 
any information imparted upon the nature or conduct of 

(6) See note QQQ at the end. 



UNDERSTANDING. CX1U 

the understanding, and Locke might now repeat what he 
said more than a century ago : " although it is of the 
highest concernment that great care should be taken of 
the mind, to conduct it right in the search of knowledge 
and in the judgments it makes: yet the last resort a 
man has recourse to in the conduct of himself is his 
understanding. A few rules of logic are thought suffi- 
cient in this case for those who pretend to the highest 
improvement: and it is easy to perceive that men are guilty 
of a great many faults in the exercise and improvement 
of this faculty of the mind, which hinder them in their 
progress, and keep them in ignorance and error all their 
lives." (a) 

At some future period our youth will, perhaps, be 
instructed in the different properties of our minds, under- 
standing, reason, imagination, memory, will, (b) and be 
taught the nature and extent of our powers for the dis- 
covery of truth; — our different motives for the exercise of 
our powers; — the various obstacles to the acquisition of 
knowledge, — and the art of invention, by which our reason 
will be " rightly guided, and directed to the place where 
the star appears, and point to the very house where the 
babe lies/' 

In the English universities there are not any lectures 
upon the passions; but this subject, deemed important by 
all philosophy, human and divine, is disregarded, (c) except 
by such indirect information as may be obtained from the 



(a) See Introduction to Locke's Conduct of the Understanding and to 
the Essay. See note Y Y Y at the end. 

(6) " Facultates autem animae notissimae sunt ; Intellectus, Ratio, Phan- 
tasia, Memoria, Appetitus, Voluntas denique universse illae, circae quas 
versantur scientiae Logicse et Ethicae." Augmentis Scientiarum, lib. iv, 
p. 242. Vol. viii. p. 242. 

(c) See note WWW at the end. 
VOL. xv. i 



CX1V LIFE OF BACON. 

poets and historians; by whom the love of our country is 
taught, perhaps, if only one mode is adopted, best taught, 
in the midst of Troy's flames : and friendship by Nisus 
eagerly sacrificing his own life to save his beloved Euryalus : 
and with such slight information we are suffered to embark 
upon our voyage, without any direct instruction as to the 
tempests by which we may be agitated ; by which so many, 
believing they are led by light from heaven, are wrecked 
and lost; and so few reach the true haven of a well ordered 
mind ; " that temple of God which he graceth with his 
perfection and blesseth with his peace, not suffering it to be 
removed although the earth be removed, and although the 
mountains be carried into the midst of the sea." 

At some future time it may be deemed worthy of con- 
sideration whether inquiry ought not to be made of the 
nature of each passion, and the harmony which results 
from the exact and regular movement of the whole, (z) 
Greatness In the fall of the year Bacon expressed to the Lord Chan- 
cellor an inclination to write a history of Great Britain ; (a) 
and he prepared a work, inscribed to the King, upon its 
true greatness. 

" Fortunatos nimium sua si bona norint." 

In this work in which, he says, he has not any purpose 
vainly to represent this greatness, as in water, which shews 
things bigger than they are, but rather, as by an instrument 
of art, helping the sense to take a true magnitude and 
dimension, he intended an investigation of the general 



(z) Saville was Provost of Eton. On Sept. 21 the King partook of a 
banquet at Eton College, and knighted Saville : this letter must therefore 
have been written after the 21st Sept. ; and it seems to have been written in 
1604, as it is a rudiment of that part of the Advancement of Learning which 
relates to universities, and was published in 1605. 

(ft) See vol. xii. p. 69. 



GREATNESS OF BRITAIN. CXV 

truths upon which the prosperity of states depends, with a 
particular application of them to this island. He has, 
however, only drawn the outline, and filled up two or 
three detached parts, reserving the minute investigation of 
the whole subject for other works, (b) 

According to his usual method, he commences the tract 
by clearing the way, in the removal of some erroneous 
opinions, on the dependence of government upon extent 
of territory ; — upon wealth j — upon fruitf ulness of soil ; — 
and upon fortified towns. Each of these subjects it was 
his intention to have separately considered, but he has in 
this fragment completed only the two first sections. 

To expose the error, that the strength of a kingdom de- Extent of 
pends upon the extent of territory, " Look," he says, " at ternt01 T- 
the kingdom of Persia, which extended from Egypt to 
Bactria and the borders of the East, and yet was over- 
thrown and conquered by a nation not much bigger than 
the isle of Britain. Look, too, at the state of Rome, which, 
when too extensive, became no better than a carcass, 
whereupon all the vultures and birds of prey of the world 
did seize and ravine for many ages ; as a perpetual monu- 
ment of the essential difference between the scale of miles 
and the scale of forces : and that the natural arms of each 
province or the protecting arms of the principal state, 
may, when the territory is too extensive, be unable to 
counteract the two dangers incident to every government, 
foreign invasion and inward rebellion." 

Having thus generally refuted this erroneous opinion, he 
beautifully explains that the power of territory, as to ex- 

(b) See vol. v. p. 311 ; also see his treatise on the Art of Government, 
which he notified the next year, and published in the decline of his life; 
see Advancement of Learning in fine, vol. ii. p. 295, and de Augmentis, 
vol. ix. p. 72 ; and see his essay on the true Greatness of Kingdoms and 
States, vol. i. p. 97. 



CXV1 



LIFE OF BACON. 



Compact- 
ness. 



Martial 
valour. 



tent, consists in compactness, — with the heart sufficient to 
support the extremities; — the arms, or martial virtues, 
answerable to the greatness of dominion ; — and every part 
of the state profitable to the whole. Each of these sections 
is explained with his usual extensive and minute investi- 
gation, and his usual felicity of familiar illustration. 

With respect to compactness, he says, " Remember the 
tortoise, which, when any part is put forth from the shell, 
is endangered." 

With respect to the heart being sufficient to sustain the 
extremities, "Remember," he says, " that the state of Rome, 
when it grew great, was compelled to naturalize the Latins, 
because the Roman stem could not bear the provinces and 
Italy both as branches; and the like they were contented 
after to do to most of the Gauls : and Sparta, when it 
embraced a larger empire, was compared to a river, which 
after it had run a great way, and taken other rivers and 
streams into it, ran strong and mighty, but about the head 
and fountain was shallow and weak." 

With respect to martial valour, " Look," he says, " at 
every conquered state, at Persia and at Rome, which, while 
they flourished in arms, the largeness of territory was a 
strength to them, and added forces, added treasures, added 
reputation : but when they decayed in arms, then greatness 
became a burthen ; like as great stature in a natural body is 
some advantage in youth, but is a burthen in age; so it is 
with great territory, which when a state beginneth to de- 
cline, doth make it stoop and buckle so much the faster." 

And with respect to each part being profitable to the 
whole, he says, in allusion to the fable in iEsop, by which 
Agrippa appeased the tumult, that health of body and of 
state is promoted by the due action of all its parts, " Some 
provinces are more wealthy, some more populous, and some 
more warlike ; some situate aptly for the excluding or 



GREATNESS OF BRITAIN. CXVll 

expulsing of foreigners, and some for the annoying and 
bridling of suspected and tumultuous subjects; some are 
profitable in present, and some may be converted and 
improved to profit by plantations and good policy/' 

He proceeds with the same minuteness to expose the Riches, 
error, that the power of government consists in riches ; by 
explaining that the real power of wealth depends upon 
mediocrity, joined with martial valour and intelligence. 

The importance of martial valour and high chivalric spirit 
he avails himself of every opportunity to enforce. " Well," 
he says, " did Solon, who was no contemplative man, say 
to Crcesus, upon his shewing him his great treasures, ' When 
another comes with iron he will be master of all your gold ;' 
and so Machiavel justly derideth the adage that money is 
the sinews of war, by saying, l There are no other true 
sinews of war but the sinews and muscles of men's arms.' " 

So impressed was he with the importance of elevating 
the national character that, three years before his death, (a) 
he spoke with still greater energy upon this subject, in 
his treatise upon the Greatness of States. " Above all 
things," he says, " cultivate a stout and warlike disposition 
of the people ; (b) for walled towns, stored arsenals, goodly 
races of horses, chariots of war, elephants, ordnance, artil- 
lery, and the like, all this is but sheep in a lion's skin, 
unless the breeding and disposition of the people be war- 
like;" and, " as to the illusion that wealth may buy assist- 
ance, let the state which trusts to mercenary forces ever 
remember, that, by these purchases, if it spread its feathers 

(a) De Augmentis, published 1623, vol. ix. p. 72. 

(b) See Sir W. Jones's translation of the ode, by Alceus. 

" What constitutes a state ? 
Not high rais'd battlement or labour' d mound, 
Not cities proud with spires and turrets crowned, 

No : man, high-minded man, &c. &c." 



CXV111 LIFE OF BACON. 

for a time beyond the compass of its nest, it will mew them 
soon after;" and, in this spirit, he records various maxims to 
counteract the debasement of character attendant upon the 
worship of gold : and above all, the evil of sedentary and 
within-door mechanical arts, requiring rather the finger 
than the arm; which in Sparta, Athens, and Rome was left 
to slaves, and amongst christians should be the employment 
of aliens, and not of the natives, who should be tillers of 
ground, free servants, and labourers in strong and manly 
arts. 

Such were the opinions of Bacon. How far they will 
meet with the approbation of political economists in these 
enlightened times, it is not necessary, in this analysis of his 
sentiments, to inquire. If he is in error, he may, in the 
infancy of the science of government, be pardoned for 
supposing that the national character would not be elevated 
by making sentient man a machine, or by those processes, 
by which bones and sinews, life and all that adorns life, is 
transmuted into gold. The bell by which the labourers 
are summoned to these many windowed fabrics in our 
manufacturing towns, sweeter to the lovers of gain than 
holy bell that tolls to parish church, would have sounded 
upon Bacon's ear with harsher import than the Norman 
curfew, (a) He may be pardoned, though he should warn 
us that in these temples, not of liberty, the national cha- 
racter will not be elevated by the employment of children, 
not in the temper of Him who took them in his arms, put 
his hands upon them and blessed them, but in never 
ceasing labour, with their morals sapped and undermined, 
their characters lowered and debased. It is possible that 
if he had witnessed the cowering looks and creeping gait, 
or shameless mirth of these little slaves, he might have 

(«) See William Wordsworth's noble proem, "The Excursion." 



GREATNESS OF BRITAIN. CX1X 

thought of Thebes or Tyre or Palmyra, and of the insta- 
bility of all human governments, whatever their present 
riches or grandeur may be, unless the people are elevated 
by virtue. 

Such, however, were his sentiments ; and, even if they 
are erroneous, it cannot but be lamented that the only parts 
of this work which are completed and applied to Great 
Britain, are those which relate to extent and wealth. The 
remaining errors of fruitfulness of the soil, and fortified 
towns are not investigated. 

Having thus cleared the way by shewing in what the 
strength of government does not consist, he intended to 
explain in what it did consist : 

1. In a fit situation, to which his observations are confined, 

2. In the population and breed of men. 

3. In the valour and military disposition of the people. 

4. In the fitness of every man to be a soldier. 

5. In the temper of the government to elevate the na- 

tional character ; and, 

6. In command of the sea : the dowry of Great Britain. 

During the next terms and the next sessions of parlia- 1605. 
ment his legal and political exertions continued without ' 
intermission. Committees were appointed for the conside- 
ration of subsidies ; of articles for religion ; purveyors ; 
recusants ; restoring deposed ministers ; abuses of the Mar- 
shalsea court, and for the better execution of penal laws in 
ecclesiastical causes. He was a member of them all ; and, 
mindful of the mode in which, during the late session, he 
had discharged his duties as representative of the house, 
he was elected to deliver to the King the charge of the 
Commons respecting ecclesiastical grievances. 

In every debate in this session he was the powerful 
advocate, in speeches which now exist, for the union of the 



cxx 



LIFE OF BACON. 



Advance- 
ment of 
Learning. 



kingdoms and the union of the laws ; (a) during which he 
availed himself, according to his usual mode, when oppor- 
tunity offered, to recommend as the first reform, the reform 
of the law, saying, "The mode of uniting the laws seemeth 
to me no less excellent than the work itself; for if both 
laws shall be united, it is of necessity, for preparation and 
inducement thereunto, that our own laws be reviewed and 
recompiled; than the which, I think, there cannot be a 
work that his majesty can undertake, in these his times of 
peace, more politic, more honourable, nor more beneficial 
to his subjects, for all ages." 

In the midst of these laborious occupations he published 
his celebrated work upon "the Advancement of Learning," 
which professes to be a survey of the then existing know- 
ledge, with a designation of the parts of science which were 
unexplored ; the cultivated parts of the intellectual world 
and the desarts ; a finished picture with an outline of what 
was untouched. 

Within the outline is included the whole of science. 
After having examined the objections to learning; — the 
advantages of learning; — the places of learning or uni- 
versities ;• — the books of learning or libraries, " the shrines 
where all the relics of the ancient saints, full of true virtue, 
and that without delusion or imposture, are preserved 
and reposed ;" — after having thus cleared the way, and, 
as it were, " made silence to have the true nature of 
learning better heard and understood," he investigates all 
knowledge : 

1st. Relating to the Memory, or History. 

2nd. Relating to the Imagination, or Poetry. 

3rd. Relating to the Understanding, or Philosophy. 



(a) Vol. v. from 1 to 106. 



ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. CXX1 

Such is the outline : within it the work is minutely ar- 
ranged, (a) abounds with great felicity of expression, and 
nervous language: but not contenting himself, by such 
arrangement, with the mere exhibition of truth, he adorned 
it with familiar, simple, and splendid imagery, (b) 



(a) The arrangement of the work may be thus generally exhibited 



I. The excellence of Learning, and its communication. 

. By divines. 
1. Objections to learning. -j 2. By politicians. 

3. From errors of learned men. 



f 1 

fl. Objections to learning. < 2, 

\ U 

L2. Proofs of advantages of learning. \ ' lvme - 



__II. What has been done and what omitted. 
fl. Universities. 
fl. Preliminary. -j 2. Libraries. 
J L3. Persons of the learned. 

fl. History. 
L2. Division. S 2. Poetry. fl. Natural religion. 

L3. Philosophy, -j 2. Natural philosophy. 
L3. Human philosophy. 

(6) Disapproving of the manner of the stoics, who laboured to thrust 
virtue upon men by concise and sharp sentences and conclusions, which 
have no sympathy with the imagination and will, he in this work avails 
himself of every opportunity to reduce intellectual to sensible things. 
" That which is addressed to the senses," he says, " strikes more forcibly 
than that which is addressed to the intellect. The image of a huntsman 
pursuing a hare ; or an apothecary putting his boxes in order ; or a man 
making a speech ; or a boy reciting verses by heart ; or an actor upon the 
stage, are more easily remembered than the notions of invention, disposi- 
tion, elocution, memory, and action." This work abounds, therefore, with 
ornament. 

So, Shakespeare, in one of his sonnets, says : 

" Since I left you, mine eye is in my mind, 

And that which governs me to go about 

Doth part his function, and is partly blind, 

Seems seeing, but effectually is out; 

For it no form delivers to the heart 

Of bird, of flower, or shape, which it doth latch ; 



CXX11 LIFE OF BACON. 

When speaking of the error of common minds retiring 
from active life, he says, " Pythagoras, being asked what 
he was, answered, that if Hiero were ever at the Olympic 
games, he knew the manner, that some came as merchants 
to utter their commodities, and some came to make good 
cheer, and some came to look on, and that he was one of 
them that came to look on • but men must know, that in 
this theatre of man's life, it is reserved only for God and 
angels to be lookers-on." (c) So, when explaining the danger 
to which intellect is exposed of running out into sensuality 
on its retirement from active life, he says, in another work, (a) 
" When I was chancellor I told Gondomar, the Spanish 
ambassador, that I would willingly forbear the honour to 
get rid of the burthen,* that I had always a desire to lead 
a private life. Gondomar answered, that he would tell 
me a tale • ' My lord, there was once an old rat that would 
needs leave the world : he acquainted the young rats that 
he would retire into his hole, and spend his days in soli- 



Of his quick objects hath the mind no part, 

Nor his own vision holds what it doth catch- 

For if it see the rud'st or gentlest sight, 

The most sweet favour, or deform'st creature, 

The mountain or the sea, the day or night, 

The crow, or dove, it shapes them to your feature. 
Incapable of more, replete with you, 
My most true mind thus maketh mine untrue." 

So too, Fuller, speaking of the divine, says, " His similes and illus- 
trations are alwaies familiar, never contemptible. Indeed reasons are the 
pillars of the fabric of a sermon, but similitudes are the windows which 
give the best lights. 7 ' 

I somewhere, but where I forget, have read that the mind of a celebrated 
divine was first excited to religious meditation by some Dutch tiles which 
ornamented the fireplace in his nursery. 

(c) Advancement of Learning, vol. ii. p. 275. 
(a) See vol. i, pp. 347 and 454. 



ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. CXXlll 

tude, and commanded them to respect his philosophical 
seclusion. They forbore two or three days : at last one, 
hardier than his fellows, ventured in to see how he did ; 
he entered, and found him sitting in the midst of a rich 
parmesan cheese. ' " 

In such familiar explanations did he indulge himself: it 
being his object not to inflate trifles into marvels, but to 
reduce marvels to plain things. Of these simple modes 
of illustrating truth it appears, from a volume of Apo- 
thegms, published in the decline of his life, and a re- 
commendation of them, in this treatise, (h) as a useful 
appendage to history, that he had formed a collection. 

When the subject required it, he, without departing from 
simplicity, selected images of a higher nature ; as, when 
explaining how the body acts upon the mind, and antici- 
pating the common senseless observation, that such investi- 
gations are injurious to religion, " Do not," he says, 
il imagine that inquiries of this nature question the immor- 
tality of the soul, or derogate from its sovereignty over the 
body. The infant in its mother's womb partakes of the 
accidents of its mother, but is separable in due season." (e) 
So, too, when explaining that the body is decomposed by 
the depredation of innate spirit and of ambient air, and 
that if the action of these causes can be prevented, the 
body will defy decomposition : " Have you never," he 
says, " seen a fly in amber, more beautifully entombed 
than an Egyptian monarch ?"(c) and, when speaking of 
the resemblance in the different parts of nature, and calling 
upon his readers to observe that truths are general, he 
says, " Is not the delight of the quavering upon a stop 

{b) See under Appendices to History, vol. ii. p. 118. 
(e) Advancement of Learning, vol. ii. p. 157. 
(c) Sylva Sylvarum, Cent. i. Art. 100. 



CXX1V LIFE OF BACON. 

in music the same with the playing of light upon the 
water, 

i Splendet tremulo sub lumine pontus/" (d) 

Such are his beautiful and playful modes of familiarizing 
abstruse subjects: but to such instances he did not con- 
fine himself. He was too well acquainted with our nature, 
merely to explain truth without occasionally raising the 
mind by noble and lofty images to love it. 

It must not be supposed that, because he illustrated 
his thoughts, he was misled by imagination, which never 
had precedence, but always followed in the train of his 
reason : (a) or, because he had recourse to arrangement, 
that he was enslaved by method, which he always disliked, 
as impeding the progress of knowledge, (a) It is, therefore, 
his constant admonition, that a plain, unadorned style, in 
aphorisms, is the proper style for philosophy; and in apho- 
risms the Novum Organum and his tract on Universal 
Justice are composed. But, although this was his general 
opinion ; although he was too well acquainted with what 
he terms the idols of the mind, to be diverted from truth 
by the love of order; yet, knowing the charms of theory 
and system, and the necessity of adopting them to insure 
a favourable reception for abstruse works, he did not 
reject these garlands, at once the ornament and fetters of 
science. They may now, perhaps, be laid aside, and the 
noble temple which he raised may be destroyed; but its 
gorgeous magnificence will never be forgotten, and amidst 
the ruins a noble statue will be seen by every true wor- 
shipper of beauty and of knowledge. 

To form a correct judgment of the merits of this treatise 

(d) De Aug. lib. iii. c. i. v. 8. p. 15.5. 
(a) See note RRIl at the euch 



ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. CXXV 

it is but justice to the author to remember, both the time 
when it was written and the persons for whom it was 
composed, " length and ornament of speech being fit for 
persuasion of multitudes, although not for information of 
kings." 

The work is divided into two books : the first con- Division, 
sisting of his dedication to the King; — of his statement of 
the objections to learning, by divines, by politicians, and 
from the errors of learned men ; — and of some of the advan- 
tages of knowledge. 

If, in compliance with the custom of the times, (c) or Dedica- 
from an opinion that wisdom, although it ought not to tl0n * 
stoop to persons, should submit to occasions, (a) or from a 
morbid anxiety to accelerate the advancement (b) of know- 



(c) See the last note in the work. 

(a) " Not that I can tax or condemn the morigeration or application of 
learned men to men in fortune. For the answer was good that Diogenes 
made to one that asked him in mockery, ' How it came to pass that philo- 
sophers were the followers of rich men, and not rich men of philosophers V 
He answered soberly, and yet sharply, ' Because the one sort knew what 
they had need of, and the other did not.' And of the like nature was the 
answer which Aristippus made, when having a petition to Dionysius, and 
no ear given to him, he fell down at his feet; whereupon Dionysius staid, 
and gave him the hearing, and granted it: and afterward some person, 
tender on the behalf of philosophy, reproved Aristippus, that he would 
offer the profession of philosophy such an indignity, as for a private suit to 
fall at a tyrant's feet : but he answered, ' It was not his fault, but it was the 
fault of Dionysius, that he had his ears in his feet.' Neither was it accounted 
weakness, but discretion in him that would not dispute his best with 
Adrianus Caesar ; excusing himself, ' That it was reason to yield to him that 
commanded thirty legions.' These and the like applications, and stooping 
to points of necessity and convenience, cannot be disallowed ; for, though 
they may have some outward baseness, yet in a judgment truly made, they 
are to be accounted submissions to the occasion, and not to the person." 

(b) It is so difficult to love and be wise, that Bacon was constantly over 
anxious to accelerate the progress of knowledge : " I have held up a light/' 
he says, "in the obscurity of philosophy, which will be seen centuries after 



CXXV1 LIFE OF BACON. 

ledge, Bacon could delude himself by the supposition 
that his fulsome dedication to the King was consistent 
either with the simplicity or dignity of philosophy, he must 
have forgotten what Seneca said to Nero, " Suffer me to 
stay here a little longer with thee, not to flatter thine ear, 
for that is not my custom, as I have always preferred to 
offend by truth than to please by flattery." He must have 
forgotten that when iEsop said to Solon, " Either we must 
not come to princes, or we must seek to please and content 
them ; Solon answered, " Either we must not come to 
princes at all, or we must speak truly and counsel them 
for the best." He must have forgotten his own doctrine, 
that books ought to have no patrons but truth and reason, (c) 



I am dead ;" but not content with this, he imagined that the protection of 
kings was necessary for the protection of truth, forgetting his own doctrine 
that, " Veritas temporis filia dicitur non authoritatis." 

In his letter of the 12th of October, 1620, to the King, he says, 
speaking of the Novum Organum : " This work is but a new body of 
clay, whereinto your Majesty, by your countenance and protection, may 
breathe life. And, to tell your Majesty truly what I think, I account your 
favour may be to this work as much as an hundred years time : for I am 
persuaded, the work will gain upon men's minds in ages, but your gracing 
it may make it take hold more swiftly : which I would be very glad of, it 
being a work meant, not for praise or glory, but for practice, and the good 
of men." 

If this opinion of the necessity of the King's protection, or of any 
patronage, for the progress of knowledge, be now supposed a weakness : if 
in these times, and in this enlightened country, truth has nothing to dread : 
if Galileo may now, without fear of the inquisition, assert that the earth 
moves round ; or when an altar is raised to the " unknown God," he who 
is ignorantly worshipped, we may declare; let us not be unmindful of the 
present state of the press in our countries, or forget that, although Bacon 
saw a little ray of distant light, yet that it was seen from far, the refraction 
of truth yet below the horizon. 

(c) " But in the mean time I have no purpose to give allowance to some 
conditions and courses base and unworthy, wherein divers professors of 
learning have wronged themselves, and gone too far; such as were those 
trencher philosophers, which in the later age of the Roman state were 



ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. CXXV11 

and he must also have forgotten his own nervous and 
beautiful admonition, that "the honest and just bounds of 
observation by one person upon another extend no further 
but to understand him sufficiently whereby not to give him 
offence ; or whereby to be able to give him faithful coun- 
sel; or whereby to stand upon reasonable guard and caution 
with respect to a man's self: but to be speculative into 
another man, to the end to know how to work him, or 
wind him, or govern him, proceedeth from a heart that is 
double and cloven, and not entire and ingenuous, which 
as in friendship it is want of integrity, so towards princes 
or superiors it is want of duty." 

If his work had been addressed to the philosophy of the Objections 
country, instead of having confined his professional objec- ^nd por- 
tions to divines and politicians, he would have explained ticians. 
that, as our opinions always constitute our intellectual 
and often our worldly wealth, prejudice is common to 
us all, (a) and is particularly conspicuous amongst all 
professional men with respect to the sciences which they 
profess, (a) 

His objections to learning from the errors of learned Errors of 

men contain his observations upon the study of words ; learned 

r J 7 men. 

upon useless knowledge; and upon falsehood, called by 
him delicate learning ; contentious learning; and fantastical 
learning; all of them erroneously considered objections to 



usually in the houses of great persons, being little better than solemn para- 
sites. Neither is the modern dedication of books and writings, as to 
patrons, to be commended : for that books, such as are worthy the name of 
books, ought to have no patrons but truth and reason. And the ancient 
custom was to dedicate them only to private and equal friends, or to entitle 
the books with their names ; or if to kings and great persons, it was to some 
such as the argument of the book was fit and proper for : but these and the 
like courses may deserve rather reprehension than defence." 

(a) See postea, under Novum Organum. 



words. 



CXXV111 LIFE OF BACON. 

learning ; as the study of words is merely the selection of 
one species of knowledge ; and contentious learning is only 
the conflict of opinion which ever exists when any science 
is in progress, and the way from sense to the understanding- 
is not sufficiently cleared ; (c) and falsehood is one of the 
consequences attendant upon inquiry, as our opinions, 
being formed not only by impressions upon our senses, 
but by confidence in the communication of others and our 
own reasonings, unavoidably teem with error, which can 
by time alone be corrected. 
Study of As it is Bacon's doctrine that knowledge consists in 
understanding the properties of creatures and the names 
by which they are called, " the occupation of Adam in 
Paradise," (d) it may seem extraordinary that he should 
not have formed a higher estimate than he appears to have 
formed of the study of words. Words assist thought; 
they teach us correctness ; they enable us to acquire the 
knowledge and character of other nations ; (e) and the 



(c) See Nov. Org. Aph. 76. vol. ix. p. 227. 

(d) Advancement of Learning, vol. ii. p. 55. 

(e) The following ingenious observations are from the De Augmentis, 
book vi. chap. i. vol. viii. p. 309. " Atqueuna etiam hoc pacto capientur 
signa haud levia, sed observatu digna (quod fortassfe quispiam non putaret) 
de ingeniis et moribus populorum et nationum, ex Unguis ipsorum. Equi- 
dem libenter audio Ciceronem notantem, quod apud Graecos desit verbum, 
quod Latinum illud Ineptum reddat ; ' Propterea/ inquit, l quod Graecis 
hoc vitium tam familiare fuit, ut illud in se ne agnoscerent quidem :' digna 
certe gravitate Romana censura. Quid illud quod Graeci in compositioni- 
bus verborum tanta licentia usi sunt, Romani contra magnam in hac re 
severitatem adhibuerunt? Plane colligat quis Graecos fuisse artibus, Ro- 
manos rebus gerendis, magis idoneos. Artium enim distinctiones verborum 
compositionem ferb exigunt ; at res et negotia simpliciora verba postulant. 
Quin Hebraei tantum compositiones illas refugiunt, ut malint metaphora 
abuti quam compositionem introducere. Quinetiam verbis tam paucis et 
minime commixtis utuntur, ut plane ex lingua ipsa quis perspiciat gentem 
fuisse illam Nazarasam, et a reliquis gentibus separatam. Annon et illud 



ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. CXX1X 

study of ancient literature in particular, if it is not an 
exercise of the intellect, is a discipline of humanity; if it 
do not strengthen the understanding, it softens and refines 
the taste ; it gives us liberal views ; it accustoms the mind 
to take an interest in things foreign to itself; to love virtue 
for its own sake; to prefer glory to riches, and to fix our 
thoughts on the remote and permanent, instead of narrow 
and fleeting objects. It teaches us to believe that there 
is really something great and excellent in the world, sur- 
viving all the shocks and accidents and fluctuations of 
opinion, and raises us above that low and servile fear, 
which bows only to present power and upstart authority. 
Rome and Athens filled a place in the history of mankind 
which can never be occupied again. They were two cities 
set on a hill which can not be hid; all eyes have seen 
them, and their light shines like a mighty sea-mark into 
the abyss of time, 

" Still green with bays each ancient altar stands." (a) 

But, notwithstanding these advantages, Bacon says, " the 
studying words and not matter is a distemper of learning, 
of which Pygmalion's frenzy is a good emblem ; for words 
are but the images of matter, and to fall in love with them 
is all one as to fall in love with a picture." (b) 

These different subjects are classed under the quaint 



observatione dignum (licet nobis modernis spiritus nonnihil retundat) anti- 
quas linguas plenas declinationum, casuum, conjugationum, temporum, et 
similium fuisse; modernas, his fere destitutas, plurima per prsepositiones 
et verba auxiliaria segniter expedire ? Sane facile quis conjiciat, utcunque 
nobis ipsi placemus, ingenia priorum sseculorum nostris fuisse multo 
acutiora et subtiliora. Innumera sunt ejusmodi, quae justum volumen 
complere possint." 

(a) See this passage in William Hazlitt's Table Talk. 

(b) Vol. ii. p. 37. 

VOL. XV. k 



CXXX LIFE OF BACON. 

expression of " Distempers of Learning," to which, that the 
metaphor may be preserved, he has appended various other 
defects, under the more quaint term of " peccant Humours 
of Learning." (b) 

His observations upon the advantages of learning, al- 
though encumbered by fanciful and minute analysis, abound 
with beauty ; for, not contenting himself with the simple 
position with which philosophy would be satisfied, that 
knowledge teaches us how to select what is beneficial and 
avoid what is injurious, he enumerates various modes, 
divine and human, by which the happiness resulting from 
knowledge ever has been and ever will be manifested. 

After having stated what he terms divine proofs of the 
advantages of knowledge, he says, the human proofs are : 

1 . Learning diminishes afflictions from nature. 

2. Learning diminishes evils from man to man. 

3. There is a union between learning and military virtue. 

4. Learning improves private virtues. 

1. It takes away the barbarism of men's minds. 

2. It takes away levity, temerity, and insolency. 

3. It takes away vain admiration. 

4. It takes away or mitigates fear. 

5. It disposes the constitution of the mind not to 

be fixed or settled in its defects, but to be sus- 
ceptible of growth and reformation. 

5. It is power. 

6. It advances fortune. 

7. It is our greatest source of delight. 

8. It insures immortality. 

(b) See next page for the Analysis. 



ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. 



CXXX1 



These positions are proved by all the force of his reason, Govern- 
and adorned by all the beauty of his imagination. When ment ' 
speaking of the power of knowledge to repress the incon- 
veniences which arise from man to man, he says, " In 
Orpheus's theatre all beasts and birds assembled, and, for- 
getting their several appetites, some of prey, some of game, 
some of quarrel, stood all sociably together, listening to 
the airs and accords of the harp ; the sound whereof no 
sooner ceased, or was drowned by some louder noise, but 
every beast returned to his own nature ; wherein is aptly 
described the nature and condition of men, who are full of 
savage and unreclaimed desires of profit, of lust, of revenge; 
which, as long as they give ear to precepts, to laws, to 
religion, sweetly touched with eloquence and persuasion of 
books, of sermons, of harangues, so long is society and 
peace maintained; but if these instruments be silent, or 
sedition and tumult make them not audible, all things dis- 
solve into anarchy and confusion." 

So when explaining, amidst the advantages of know- 
ledge, its excellency in diffusing happiness through sue- Posthu- 
ceeding ages, he says, " Let us conclude with the dignity 
and excellency of knowledge and learning in that where- 



mousfame. 



The Analysis of this subject is as follows : 

fl. Fantastical. 
pi. General. ■{ 2. Contentious. 
1 3. Delicate. 



Distempers of 
Learning. 



<-2. Peccant humours. - 



1 - A 'c:;ri Noth, " snw 

2. Prevalence of Truth. 

3. Arrangement. 

4. Universality. 

5. Metaphysics. 

6. Infecting opinions. 

7. Haste. 

8. Positiveness. 

9. Want of Invention. 
^10. Erroneous motives. 



CXXX11 LIFE OF BACON. 

unto man's nature doth most aspire, which is, immortality 
or continuance : for to this tendeth generation, and raising 
of houses and families ; to this buildings, foundations, and 
monuments ; to this tendeth the desire of memory, fame, 
and celebration, and in effect the strength of all other 
human desires. We see then how far the monuments of 
wit and learning are more durable than the monuments of 
power or of the hands. For have not the verses of Homer 
continued twenty-five hundred years, or more, without the 
loss of a syllable or letter; during which time infinite 
palaces, temples, castles, cities, have been decayed and 
destroyed ? It is not possible to have the true pictures or. 
statues of Cyrus, Alexander, Caesar ; no, nor of the kings 
or great personages of much later years ; for the originals 
cannot last, and the copies cannot but leese of the life 
and truth : but the images of men's wits and knowledges 
remain in books exempted from the wrong of time, and 
capable of perpetual renovation. Neither are they fitly to. 
be called images, because they generate still, and cast their 
seeds in the minds of others, provoking and causing infinite 
actions and opinions in succeeding ages; so that, if the 
invention of the ship was thought so noble, which carrieth 
riches and commodities from place to place, and consociateth 
the most remote regions in participation of their fruits, 
how much more are letters to be magnified, which, as ships, 
pass through the vast seas of time, and make ages so 
distant to participate of the wisdom, illuminations and 
inventions, the one of the other?" 

After having thus explained some of the blessings at- 
tendant upon knowledge, he concludes the first book with 
lamenting that these blessings are not more generally 
preferred, (a) 

(a) See ante, page xi. 



ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. CXXXlll 

The second book, after various preliminary observations, 
and particularly upon the defects of universities, (b) of 
which, from the supposition that they are formed rather 
for the discovery of new knowledge than for diffusing 
the knowledge of our predecessors, he, through life, seems 
to have formed too high an estimate, he arranges and 
adorns every species of history, (d) which he includes 
within the province of memory, — and every species of 
poetry, (e) by which imagination can " elevate the mind 
from the dungeon of the body to the enjoying its own 
divine essence:" — and, passing from poetry, by saying, 
" but it is not good to stay too long in the theatre : let 
us now pass on to the judicial place or palace of the mind, 
which we are to approach and view with more reverence 
and attention," he proceeds to the investigation of every 
species of philosophy, divine, natural, and human, of which, 
from his analysis of human philosophy, or the science of 
man, some conception may be formed of the extent and 
perfection of the different parts of the work. 

(b) See note K at the end. 

(d) The following is his Analysis of History : 

fl. Of Creatures. 
1. Natural. \ 2. Of Marvels. 
l_3. Of Arts. 



1. Different 
Histories. 



2. Civil 



•c, 5 1- Memorials, 

rragments. < ~ 



Antiquities. 

Biography. 
Chronicles. 
2. Perfect. J I 3. Relations. 



rl. Simple. J 2. 

\ u 

L2. Mixed. 



The Church. 
.3. Ecclesiastical. -\ 2. Prophecy. 
Providence. 
Memorials. 
2. Appendices. •{ 2. Epistles. 

Apothegms. 

(e) 1. Narrative. 2. Representative. 3. Parabolical. 



CXXX1V 



LIFE OF BACON. 






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ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. CXXXV 

These different subjects, exhibited with this perspicuity, 
are adorned with beautiful illustration and imagery: as, 
when explaining the doctrine of the will, divided into the 
image of good or the exhibition of truth, and the culture 
or Georgics of the mind, which is its husbandry or til- 
lage so as to love the truth which it sees, he says, " The 
neglecting these Georgics seemeth to me no better than to 
exhibit a fair image or statue, beautiful to behold, but 
without life or motion." (a) 

Having thus made a small globe of the intellectual 
world, he, looking at the work he had made, and hoping 
that it was good, thus concludes : " And being now at 
some pause, looking back into that I have passed through, 
this writing seemeth to me, ' si nunquam fallit imago/ 
(as far as a man can judge of his own work) not much 
better than the noise or sound which musicians make 
while they are tuning their instruments, which is nothing 
pleasant to hear, but yet is a cause why the music is 
sweeter afterwards : so have I been content to tune the 
instruments of the muses, that they may play that have 
better hands. And surely, when I set before me the con- 
dition of these times, in which learning hath made her 

(a) The passage is as follows : " In the handling of this 
science, those which have written seem to me to have done 
as if a man, that professeth to teach to write did only 
exhibit fair copies of alphabets and letters joined, without 
giving any precepts or directions for the carriage of the hand 
and framing of the letters : so have they made good and fair 
exemplars and copies, carrying the draughts and portrai- 
tures of good, virtue, duty, felicity; propounding them well 
described as the true objects and scopes of man's will and 
desires ; but how to attain these excellent marks, and how to 
frame and subdue the will of man to become true and con- 
formable to these pursuits, they pass it over altogether," &c. 



CXXXV1 LIFE OF BACON. 

third visitation or circuit in all the qualities thereof: as 
the excellency and vivacity of the wits of this age; the 
noble helps and lights which we have by the travails of 
ancient writers ; the art of printing, which communicate th 
books to men of all fortunes ; the openness of the world 
by navigation, which hath disclosed multitudes of experi- 
ments, and a mass of natural history ; the leisure where- 
with these times abound, not employing men so generally 
in civil business as the states of Grsecia did, in respect of 
their popularity, and the state of Rome, in respect of the 
greatness of their monarchy ; the present disposition of 
these times at this instant to peace; the consumption of 
all that ever can be said in controversies of religion, which 
have so much diverted men from other sciences ; and the 
inseparable property of time, which is ever more and more 
to disclose truth, — I cannot but be raised to this persuasion, 
that this third period of time will far surpass that of the 
Grecian and Roman learning ; only if men will know their 
own strength, and their own weakness both ; and take, 
one from the other, light of invention, and not fire of con- 
tradiction ; and esteem of the inquisition of truth, as of an 
enterprize, and not as of a quality or ornament; and employ 
wit and magnificence to things of worth and excellency, 
and not to things vulgar and of popular estimation." 

Of this work he presented copies to the King and to 
different statesmen, and, to secure its perpetuity, he exerted 
himself with his friends to procure a translation of it into 
Latin, which, in the decline of his life, he accomplished, (a) 
1606. As a philosopher, Bacon, who beheld all things from a 

cliff, thus viewed the intellectual globe, dilating his sight 
to survey the whole of science, and contracting it so that 
the minutest object could not escape him. 

(a) For the different editions and further particulars of this work, see 
note AAA at the end. 



i£t. 46. 



IRELAND. CXXXVIl 

Sweet as such speculations were to such a mind : pleas- 
ing as the labour must have been in surmounting the 
steeps : delightful to tarry upon them, and painful to quit 
them, he did not suffer contemplation to absorb his mind; 
but as a statesman, he was ever in action, ever advancing 
the welfare of his country. These opposite exertions were 
the necessary result of his peculiar mind ; for, as knowledge 
takes away vain admiration, as no man marvels at the play 
of puppets who has been behind the curtain, (a) Bacon 
could not have been misled by the baubles by which com- 
mon minds are delighted ;( d) and, as he had examined the 
nature of all pleasures, and felt that knowledge and bene- 
volence, which is ever in its train, surpassed them all, -(e) 
the chief source of his happiness, wherever situated, must 
have consisted in diminishing evil and in promoting good. 

With his delicate health and intense love of knowledge, 
he ought in prudence to have shunned the broad way and 
the green, and retreated to contemplation ; but it was 
his favourite opinion that, " in this theatre of man's life, 
God and angels only should be lookers-on ; that contem- 
plation and action ought ever to be united, a conjunction 
like unto that of the two highest planets, Saturn the planet 
of rest, and Jupiter the planet of action." 

He could not, thus thinking, but engage in active life ; 
and, so engaged, he could not but act in obedience to the 
passion by which he was alone animated; by exerting 
himself and endeavouring to excite others to promote the 
public good. We find him, therefore, labouring as a states- 
man and a patriot to improve the condition of Ireland ; to 



(«) Advancement of Learning, vol. ii. p. 80. 

(d) When the populace huzzaed Dr. Swift upon his arrival in Ireland, 
" I wish," he said, " they would huzza my lord mayor." 

(e) Advancement of Learning, vol. ii. p. 85. 



CXXXVlll LIFE OF BACON. 

promote the union of England and Scotland ; to correct 
the errors which had crept into our religious establish- 
ments, and to assist in the amendment of the law; and, 
not content with the fruits of his own exertions, calling 
upon all classes of society to co-operate in reform. 

To professional men he says, " I hold that every man is 
a debtor to his profession, from the which, as men do of 
course seek to receive countenance and profit, so ought 
they to endeavour themselves by way of amends, to be a 
help and ornament." (a) And he admonishes the King, that, 
" as a duty to himself, to the people, and to the King of 
kings, he ought to erect temples, tombs, palaces, theatres, 
bridges, make noble roads, cut canals, grant multitude of 
charters and liberties for comfort of decayed companies 
and corporations ; found colleges and lectures for learning 
and the education of youth ; institute orders and fraternities 
for nobility, enterprize, and obedience; but, above all, 
establish good laws for the regulation of the kingdom, 
and as an example to the world." 
Ireland. On the first day of the ensuing year he thus presented, 

as a new year's gift to the King, a discourse touching the 
plantation of Ireland : (b) " I know not better how to 
express my good wishes of a new year to your majesty, 
than by this little book, which in all humbleness I send 
you. The style is a style of business, rather than curious 
or elaborate. And herein I was encouraged by my expe- 
rience of your majesty's former grace, in accepting of the 
like poor field fruits touching the union. And certainly 
I reckon this action as a second brother to the union. For 
I assure myself that England, Scotland, and Ireland, well 
united, is such a trefoil as no prince except yourself, who 
are the worthiest, weareth in his crown." 

(«) See note 3 G at the end. (b) Vol. v. p. 170. 



SCOTLAND. CXXXIX 

In this discourse, his knowledge of the miseries of Ire- 
land, that still neglected country, and of the mode of pre- 
venting them, with his heartfelt anxiety for her welfare, 
appears in all his ardent endeavours, by all the power he 
possessed, to insure the King's exertions for " this desolate 
and neglected country, blessed with almost all the dowries 
of nature, with rivers, havens, woods, quarries, good soil, 
temperate climate, and a race and generation of men, 
valiant, hard, and active, as it is not easy to find such 
confluence of commodities, if the hand of man did join 
with the hand of nature ; but they are severed, — the harp 
of Ireland is not strung or attuned to concord. This work, 
therefore, of all other, most memorable and honourable, 
your majesty hath now in hand; specially, if your majesty 
join the harp of David in casting out the evil spirit of 
superstition, with the harp of Orpheus, in casting out deso- 
lation and barbarism. "(«) 

His exertions respecting the union of England and Scot- Scotland, 
land were, both in and out of parliament, strenuous and 
unremitted. He spoke whenever the subject was agitated. 
He was a member of every committee that was formed to 
carry it into effect : he prepared the certificate of the com- 
missioners appointed to treat of the union : and he was 
selected to report the result of a conference with the Lords; 
until, exhausted by fatigue, he was compelled to intercede 
with the house that he might be assisted by the co-opera- 
tion of other members in the discharge of these arduous 
duties; (b) and, it having been decided by all the judges, 
after an able argument of Bacon's, that all persons born in 
Scotland after the King's commission were natural born 
subjects, he laboured in parliament to extend these privi- 

(a) Speech on General Naturalization. 

(b) Commons' Journals. 



ex 



1 LIFE OF BACON. 



leges to all Scotland, that the rights enjoyed by the 
children should not be withheld from their parents. 

The journals of the Commons contain an outline of many 
of his speeches, of which one upon the union of laws, and 
another upon the general naturalization of the Scottish 
nation were completed, and have been preserved ; and are 
powerful evidence of his zeal and ability in this good cause, 
exerted at the risk of the popularity, which, by his inde- 
pendent conduct in parliament, he had justly acquired, (a) 
But he did not confine his activity to the bar or to the 
House of Commons. In his hours of recreation he wrote 
three works for the use of the King : " A Discourse upon 
the happy Union; (b) "Considerations on the same;"(c) 
and a preparation towards "the union of these two mighty 
and warlike nations under one sovereign and monarchy, 
and between whom there are no mountains or races of 
hills, no seas or great rivers, no diversity of tongue or 
language that hath created or provoked this ancient and 
too long continued divorce." 
Church His anxiety to assist in the improvement of the church 

appears in his exertions in parliament, and in his publica- 
tions in his times of recreation. When assisting in the 
improvement of our civil establishment, he was ever mind- 
ful that our country ought to be treated as our parents, with 
mildness and persuasion, and not with contestations ; {d) 
and, in his suggestions for the improvement of our religious 
establishments, his thoughts have a glory around them, 
from the reverence with which he always approaches this 
sacred subject, and particularly on the eve of times, which 
he foresaw, when voices in religion were to be numbered 
and not weighed, and when his daily prayer was, " Re- 
member, O Lord, how thy servant hath walked before 

(a) Vol. v. p. 1. (b) Vol. v. p. 16. 

(c) Vol. v. p. 1 to 106. (d) Advancement of Learning. 



Reform. 



CHURCH REFORM. Cxli 

thee : remember what I have first sought, and what hath 
been principal in my intentions. I have loved thy assem- 
blies : I have mourned for the division of the church : I 
have delighted in the brightness of thy sanctuary. This 
vine which thy right hand hath planted in this nation, I 
have ever prayed unto thee that it might stretch her 
branches to the seas and to the floods." 

His publications are two : the one entitled, " An Adver- 
tisement, touching the Controversies of the Church of 
England ;" the other " Certain Considerations touching 
the better Pacification and Edification of the Church of 
England." These tracts abound with thought; and, ac- 
cording to his usual mode, consist of an extensive survey 
of the whole of our religious establishment, and the most 
minute observations of all its parts, even to the surplice of 
the minister, that simple pastoral garment, which, with 
the crook to guide, and to draw back the erring flock, 
beautiful emblems of the good shepherd, are still retained 
by the established church. 

His tract upon church controversies (a) contains an out- Church 
line of all religious disputes, and abounds with observations ^ ontrover - 
well worthy the consideration of ecclesiastical controver- 
sialists; who will, perchance, submit to be admonished 
by Bacon that, as christians, they should contend, not as 
the briar with the thistle, which is most unprofitable, but 
as the vine with the olive, which bears best fruit. 

The considerations touching the pacification of the church Edification 
are dedicated to the King; and, after apologizing for his £,, , 
interposition as a layman with ecclesiastical matters, (b) 
and describing the nature of the various reformers, and 
the objections to the reform of the church, he examines 
with great accuracy the government of bishops, — the 

(a) See this tract analyzed, vol. vii. p. xx. in preface, and see the tract in 
text, vol. vii. p. 28. 
(6) Vol. v. p. 61. 



ex 



Hi LIFE OF BACON. 



liturgy, — the ceremonies, and subscription, — a preaching- 
ministry, — the abuse of excommunications, — the provision 
for sufficient maintenance in the church, and non-residents 
and pluralities, of which he says : " For non-residence, 
except it be in case of necessary absence, it seemeth an 
abuse, drawn out of covetousness and sloth ; for that men 
should live of the flock that they do not feed, or of 
the altar at which they do not serve, is a thing that can 
hardly receive just defence; and to exercise the office of 
a pastor, in matter of the word and doctrine, by deputies, 
is a thing not warranted." (a) And he thus concludes: 
" Thus have I, in all humbleness and sincerity of heart, to 
the best of my understanding, given your majesty tribute 
of my cares and cogitations in this holy business, so highly 
tending to God's glory, your majesty's honour, and the 
peace and welfare of your states; insomuch as I am per- 
suaded, that the papists themselves should not need so 
much the severity of penal laws, if the sword of the spirit 
were better edged, by strengthening the authority, and 
suppressing the abuses in the church." 
Solicitor Early in this year an event occurred of considerable 

enera . i m p or tance to his worldly prospects and professional tran- 
Mt. 47. quillity, by the promotion of Sir Edward Coke from the 
office of Attorney General to the Chief Justiceship of the 
Common Pleas, occasioning a vacancy in the office of 
Solicitor General, which Bacon strenuously exerted him- 
self to obtain, under the delusion, that, by increasing his 
practice, he should be enabled sooner to retire into contem- 
plative life. He applied to Lord Salisbury, to the Lord 
Chancellor, (b) and to the King, by whom on the 25th 



(«.) The good shepherd knoweth his sheep, and is known of them; but 
the hireling fleeth because he is an hireling. 

(6) His letter to the Chancellor concludes with saying, " I am much 



SIR EDWARD COKE. Cxliii 

day of June, 1607, he was appointed Solicitor, to the great 
satisfaction of his profession, (c) the prospect of worldly 
emolument, and the hope of professional tranquillity, by a 
removal from conflict with the coarse mind and acrid 
humour of Sir Edward Coke, rude to his equals and inso- 
lent to the unfortunate. 

Who can forget his treatment of Bacon who, when 
reviled, reviled not again, (d) but in due season thus expos- 
tulated with him : 

Mr. Attorney, — I thought best once for all, to let you 
know in plainness what I find of you, and what you shall 
find of me. You take to yourself a liberty to disgrace and 
disable my law, my experience, my discretion. What it 
pleaseth you I pray think of me; I am one that knows 
both mine own wants and other men's : and it may be, 
perchance, that mine mend, others stand at a stay. And 
surely, I may not endure in public place to be wronged, 
without repelling the same to my best advantage to right 
myself. You are great, and therefore have the more enviers, 

deceived if your lordship find not the King well inclined, and my Lord 
Salisbury forward and affectionate." 

(c) In his letter to Lord Salisbury, he says, " I have been voiced to this 
office." 

(d) " A true Remembrance of the Abuse I received of Mr. Attorney 

General publicly in the Exchequer the first day of term; for the 
truth whereof I refer myself to all that were present. 

" I moved to have a reseizure of the lands of George More, a relapsed 
recusant, a fugitive, and a practising traitor; and shewed better matter for 
the Queen against the discharge by plea, which is ever with a ' salvo jure.' 
And this I did in as gentle and reasonable terms as might be. 

" Mr. Attorney kindled at it, and said, ' Mr. Bacon, if you have any 
tooth against me, pluck it out ; for it will do you more hurt than all the 
teeth in your head will do you good.' I answered coldly in these very 
words; ' Mr. Attorney, I respect you: I fear you not; and the less you 
speak of your own greatness, the more 1 will think of it.' 

" He replied, t I think scorn to stand upon terms of greatness towards 



Cxliv LIFE OF BACON. 

which would be glad to have you paid at another's cost. 
Since the time I missed the Solicitor's place, the rather, I 
think, by your means, I cannot expect that you and I 
shall ever serve as Attorney and Solicitor together, but 
either to serve with another, upon your remove, or to step 
into some other course ; so as I am more free than ever I 
was from any occasion of unworthy conforming myself to 
you more than general good manners, or your particular 
good usage shall provoke : and, if you had not been short- 
sighted in your own fortune, as I think, you might have 
had more use of me ; but that tide is passed. I write not 
this, to show my friends what a brave letter I have written 
to Mr. Attorney ; 1 have none of those humours, but that 
I have written is to a good end : that is, to the more 
decent carriage of my master's service, and to our particular 
better understanding one of another. This letter, if it shall 
be answered by you in deed and not in word, I suppose it 
will not be worse for us both ; else it is but a few lines lost, 
which, for a much smaller matter I would have adventured. 
So this being to yourself, I for my part rest, Sec. 



you, who are less than little; less than the least:' and other such strange 
light terms he gave me, with that insulting, which cannot be expressed. 

" Herewith stirred, yet I said no more but this : ' Mr. Attorney, do not 
depress me so far; for I have been your better, and may be again, when it 
please the Queen.' 

" With this he spake, neither I nor himself could tell what, as if he had 
been born attorney general ; and in the end bade me not meddle with the 
Queen's business, but with mine own, and that I was unsworn, &c. I 
told him, sworn or unsworn was all one to an honest man; and that I ever 
set my service first, and myself second ; and wished to God, that he would 
do the like. 

" Then he said, it were good to clap a e cap. utlegatum' upon my back ! 
To which I only said he could not; and that he was at fault; for he 
hunted upon an old scent. 

" He gave me a number of disgraceful words besides ; which I answered 
with silence, and shewing that I was not moved with them." 



SOLICITOR GENERAL. 



cxlv 



Of Coke's bitter spirit there are so many painful instances, 
that, unless Bacon had to complain of unfairness in other 
matters, the acrimony which overflowed upon all, could 
not be considered altogether the effect of personal rivalry. 
It would have been well had his morbid feelings been con- 
fined to his professional opponents ; but, unmindful of the 
old maxim, " let him take heed how he strikes, who strikes 
with a dead hand," his rancorous abuse extended to prisoners 
on trials for their lives, (a) for which he was severely cen- 
sured by Bacon, who told him that in his pleadings he was 
ever wont to insult over misery, (b) 

Who can forget Coke's treatment of Raleigh, entitled as 
he was by station and attainments to the civil observances 
of a gentleman, and, by long imprisonment and subsequent 
misfortunes, to the commiseration of all men. It is true 
that there were some persons present at this trial, who 
remembered that Raleigh and Cobham had stood only a 
few years before, with an open satisfaction, to witness the 
death of Essex, against whom they had secretly conspired ; 
but even the sense of retributive justice, though it might 
deaden their pity, could not lessen their disgust at the 
cruel and vulgar invectives of Coke, whose knowledge 
neither expanded his intellect, or civilized his manners. 
Fierce with dark keeping, his mind resembled some of 
those gloomy structures where records and muniments are 
piled to the exclusion of all higher or nobler matters. For 
genius he had no love : with philosophy he had no sym- 
pathy. 

Upon the trial of Raleigh, Coke, after denouncing him 



(a) Coke, upon the trial of Mrs. Turner, told her that she was " guilty 
of the seven deadly sins ;" that she was " a whore, a bawd, a sorcerer, a 
witch, a papist, a felon, and a murderer." 

(b) Letter of expostulation, vol. vii. p. 297. 
VOL. XV. / 



Cxlvi LTFE OF BACON. 

as an atheist and a traitor, reproached him, with the usual 
antipathy of a contracted mind to superior intellect, for 
being a genius and man of wit. (c) 

(c) Raleigh. To whom speak you this? You tell me news I never 
heard of. 

Attorney. Oh, sir, do I ? I will prove you the notoriest traitor that ever 
came to the bar. After you have taken away the King, you would alter 
religion : as you, Sir Walter Raleigh, have followed them of the bye in 
imitation ; for I will charge you with the words. 

Raleigh. Your words cannot condemn me ; my innocency is my defence. 
Prove one of these things wherewith you have charged me, and I will con- 
fess the whole indictment, and that I am the horriblest traitor that ever 
lived, and worthy to be crucified with a thousand thousand torments. 

Attorney. Nay, I will prove all : thou art a monster ; thou hast an 
English face, but a Spanish heart. Oh sir ! I am the more large, because 
I know with whom I deal ; for we have to deal to-day with a man of wit. 

Raleigh. If truth be constant, and constancy be in truth, why hath he 
forsworn that that he hath said ? You have not proved any one thing 
against me by direct proofs, but all by circumstances. 

Attorney. Have you done ? The King must have the last. 

Raleigh. Nay, Mr. Attorney, he which speaketh for his life must speak 
last. False repetitions and mistakings must not mar my cause. You 
should speak secundum allegata et probata. I appeal to God and the King 
in this point, whether Cobham's accusation be sufficient to condemn me. 

Attorney. The King's safety and your clearing cannot agree. I protest 
before God, I never knew a clearer treason. 

Raleigh. I never had intelligence with Cobham since I came to the Tower. 

Attorney. Go to, I will lay thee upon thy back, for the confidentest 
traitor that ever came at a bar. Why should you take eight thousand 
crowns for a peace ? 

Lord Cecil. Be not so impatient, good Mr. Attorney ; give him leave to 
speak. 

Attorney. If I may not be patiently heard, you will encourage traitors, 
and discourage us. I am the King's sworn servant, and must speak : if 
he be guilty, he is a traitor: if not deliver him. 

Note, here Mr. Attorney sat down in a chafe, and would speak no more, 
until the Commissioners urged and intreated him. After much ado he 
went on, and made a long repetition of all the evidence, for the direction of 
the jury: and at the repeating of some things, Sir Walter Raleigh inter- 
rupted him, and said he did him wrong. 

Attorney. Thou art the most vile and execrable traitor that ever lived. 

Raleigh. You speak indiscreetly, barbarously, and uncivilly. 

Attorney. I want words sufficient to express thy viperous treasons. 



SOLICITOR GENERAL. Cxlvii 

When Bacon presented him with a copy of his Novum 
Organum he wrote with his own hand, at the top of the 
title page, Edw. C. ex dono auctoris. 

Auctori Consilium. 
Instaurare paras veterum documenta sophorum : 
Instaura Leges Justitiamq ; prius. 

And over the device of the ship passing between Hercules's 
pillars, he wrote the two following verses; 

" It deserveth not to be read in schools, 
But to be freighted in the Ship of Fooles."(>z) 

From professional altercations with this contracted mind 
Bacon was rescued by his promotion. 

Another and more important advantage attendant upon 
his appointment was the opportunity which it afforded 
him to assist in the encouragement of merit and in legal 
reform. Detur digniori was his constant maxim and con- 
stant practice. (b) He knew and taught that power to do 
good is the true and lawful end of aspiring; and, when 
appointed Solicitor, he acted in obedience to his doctrines, 
encouraging merit, and endeavouring to discharge the duty 
which he owed to his profession by exertions and works 
for the improvement of the law. (c) 



Raleigh. I think you want words indeed, for you have spoken one thing- 
half a dozen times. 

Attorney. Thou art an odious fellow, thy name is hateful to all the realm 
of England for thy pride. 

Raleigh. It will go near to prove a measuring cast between you and me, 
Mr. Attorney. 

Attorney. Well, I will now make it appear to the world, that there never 
lived a viler viper upon the face of the earth than thou. — State Trials. 

See note X X X X at the end . 

(a) See note YYYY at the end. 

(b) Sic postea, when he was Chancellor. See note 4 A at the end. 
Paley, vol. i. p. 94. 

(e) See note C C at the end. 



cxlviii 



LIFE OF BACON\ 



Cogitata et 
Visa, &c. 



Wisdom 
of the 
Ancients. 



In the midst of arduous affairs of state and professional 
duties, he went right onward with his great work, con- 
ferring with various scholars and philosophers, from whose 
communications there was any probability of his deriving 
advantage. 

In the progress of the Novum Organum he had, at diffe- 
rent periods, even from his youth, arranged his thoughts 
upon detached parts of the work, and collected them under 
different titles : " Temporis partus maximus,"( a ) " Filum 
Labyrinthi,"(6) " Cogitata et Visa, &c."(c) 

He now sent to the Bishop of Ely the " Cogitata et 
Visa."(d) He communicated also on the subject with his 
friend, Mr. Mathew, who, having cautioned him that he 
might excite the prejudices of the churchmen, spoke freely, 
yet with approbation of the work, (e) He also sent the 
tract to Sir Thomas Bodley, who received it with all the 
attachment of a collegian to Aristotle and the schoolmen 
and university studies, and, with the freedom of a friend, 
respectfully imparted to Bacon that his plan was vi- 
sionary. (/) 

In the year 1609, as a relaxation from abstruse specula- 
tions, (g) he published in Latin his interesting little work, 



(a) See vol. xi. p. 478. 

(b) See vol. i. p. 311, and vol. x. p. 372. 

(c) See vol. x. p. 462. 

(d) See the letter, vol. xii. p. 93. 

(e) See vol. xii. p. 90 to 94. 
(/) See vol. xii. p. 83. 

(g) " Le changement d'etude est toujours un delasement pour moi." 

D'Aguesseau. 

" What an heaven lives a scholar in, that at once in one close room can 
daily converse with all the glorious martyrs and fathers ? that can single 
out at pleasure either sententious Tertullian, or grave Cyprian, or resolute 
Hierome, or flowing Chrysostome, or divine Ambrose, or devout Bernard, 
or (who alone is all these) heavenly Augustine, and talk with them, and 
hear their wise and holy counsels, verdicts, resolutions ; yea (to rise higher), 
with courtly Esay, with learned Paul, with all their fellow-prophets, 



WISDOM OF THE ANCIENTS. Cxlix 

" De Sapientia Veterum," of which he sent a copy to his 
friend, Mr. Mathew, saying, " My great work goeth for- 
ward, and after my manner I alter ever when I add." 

This treatise is a species of parabolical poetry, explained 
in the Advancement of Learning, and expanded by an in- 
sertion in the treatise De Augmentis Scientiarum of three 
of the Fables, (a) " One use of parabolical poesy consists," 
he says, " in withdrawing from common sight those things 
the dignity whereof deserves to be retired, as the secrets 
and mysteries of religion, policy, and philosophy, which are 
therefore veiled and invested in fables and parables, and, 
next to sacred writ, are the most ancient of all writings ; 
for adopted, not excogitated by the reciters, they seem to 
be like a thin rarefied air, which, from the traditions of 
more ancient nations, fell into the flutes of the Grecians." 

This tract seems, in former times, to have been much 
valued, for the same reason, perhaps, which Bacon assigns 
for the currency of the Essays ; " because they are like the 
late new halfpence, where the pieces are small, but the 
silver is good." 

The fables, abounding with a union of deep thought and 
poetic beauty, are thirty-one in number, (b) of which a 
part of " The Syrens, or Pleasures," may be selected as a 
specimen. 

apostles ; yet more, like another Moses, with God himself, in them both ? 
Let the world contemn us ; while we have these delights we cannot envy 
them; we cannot wish ourselves other than we are.' 7 See Bishop Hall's 
beautiful essay on tho Pleasure of Study aud Contemplation. 

(a) See vol. viii. p. 124. 

(b) Cassandra, or Divination. Eudymion, or a Favourite. 
Typhon, or a Rebel. The Sister of the Giants, or Fame. 
The Cyclops, or the Ministers of Actaeon and Pentheus, or a Cu- 

Terror. rious Man. 

Narcissus, or Self Love. Orpheus, or Philosophy. 

Styx, or Leagues. Ccelum, or Beginnings. 

Pan, or Nature. Proteus, or Matter. 

Perseus, or War. Memnon, or Youth too forward. 



cl LIFE OF BACON. 

In this fable he explains the common but erroneous 
supposition, that knowledge and the conformity of the will, 
knowing and acting, are convertible terms. — Of this error 
he, in his essay of " Custom and Education," admonishes 
his readers, by saying, "Men's thoughts are much according 
to their inclination ; their discourse and speeches according 
to their learning and infused opinions, but their deeds are 
after as they have been accustomed ; iEsop's damsel, trans- 
formed from a cat to a woman, sat very demurely at the 
board-end till a mouse ran before her." — In the fable of 
the Syrens he exhibits the same truth, saying, " The habi- 
tation of the Syrens was in certain pleasant islands, from 
whence, as soon as out of their watch-tower they disco- 
vered any ships approaching, with their sweet tunes they 
would first entice and stay them, and, having them in 
their power, would destroy them ; and, so great were the 
mischiefs they did, that these isles of the syrens, even as 
far off as man can ken them, appeared all over white with 
the bones of unburied carcasses : by which it is signified 
that albeit the examples of afflictions be manifest and 
eminent, yet they do not sufficiently deter us from the 
wicked enticements of pleasure." (a) 

Tithonus, or Satiety. Dionysius, or Passions. 

Juno's Suitor, or Baseness. Atalanta, or Gain. 

Cupid, or an Atom. Prometheus, or the State of Man. 

Diomedes, or Zeal. Scylla and Icarus, or the Middle 
Daedalus, or Mechanic. Way. 

Ericthonius, or Imposture. Sphynx, or Science. 

Deucalion, or Restitution. Proserpina, or Spirit. 
Nemesis, or the Vicissitudes of Metis, or Counsel. 

Things. The Syrens, or Pleasures. 
Achelous, or Battle. 

(a) See note CCC at the end, for the various editions of this work, and 
observations upon them. See vol. iii. p. 1, for the English, and vol. xi. 
p. 271, for the Latin. 






el: 



CHAPTER II. 

FROM THE PUBLICATION OF THE WISDOM OF THE 

ANCIENTS TO THE PUBLICATION OF 

THE NOVUM ORGANUM. 

In consequence of the limitation, in the court of King's Marshal- 
Bench, (a) of the jurisdiction of the Marshalsea court to sea * 
the officers of the King's household, a new court of record 
was erected by letters patent, styled " Curia virgi palatii 
summi Regis/' to extend the jurisdiction; and the judges 
nominated by the letters patent were Sir Francis Bacon 
the Solicitor General, and Sir James Vavasour, then Mar- 
shal of the Household, (b) In this office he delivered a 
learned and methodical charge to a jury upon a commission 
of oyer and terminer, in which he availed himself of an 
opportunity to protest against the abuse of capital punish- 
ment, (c) " For life," he says, " I must say unto you in 
general that it is grown too cheap in these times; it is 
set at the price of words, and every petty scorn and dis- 
grace can have no other reparation ; nay, so many men's 
lives are taken away with impunity, that the very life of 
the law, the execution, is almost taken away." 

When Solicitor he argued in the case of Sutton's Hos- Charter 
pital, or the Charter House, (d) against the legality of the House * 



(a) Michelbonn's case, 6 Co. 20. 

(b) A history of this court, its officers, &c. may be found in a tract pub- 
lished by Clarke and Co. Law-booksellers, Portugal Street, A.D. 1812. 
See also Buckley on Jurisdiction of Marshalsea, 1827. 

(c) See vol. vi. p. 85. 

(d) 10 Co. 1. 



Clii LIFE OF BACON. 

foundation, and, fortunately for the advancement of charity 
and of knowledge, he argued without success, as its va- 
lidity was confirmed; and in 1611 this noble institution 
was opened, to the honour of its munificent founder, who 
preferred the consciousness of doing good to the empty 
honours which were offered to divert him from his course, (a) 
It seems, however, that Bacon's objections to the charity 
were not confined to his argument at the bar, but were the 
expression of his judgment, as he afterwards addressed a 
letter of advice to the King, pointing out many imaginary 
or real defects of the project, (b) in which he says, " I wish 
Mr. Sutton's intentions were exalted a degree; and that 
which he meant for teachers of children, your majesty 
should make for teachers of men ; wherein it hath been my 
ancient opinion and observation, (c) that in the universities 
of this realm, which I take to be of the best endowed 
universities of Europe, there is nothing more wanting 
towards the flourishing state of learning than the honour- 
able and plentiful salaries of readers in arts and profes- 
sions ; for, if you will have sciences flourish, you must ob- 
serve David's military law, which was, i that those which 
staid with the carriage should have equal part with those 
which were in the action/ " (c) 
1612. I n the year 1612, he published a new edition of his 
iLt. 52. e s Sa y S ^ enlarged and enlivened by illustrations and ima- 

the Prince g erv >(^) which, upon the sudden death of Prince Henry, (e) 
and 

Essays. — ! — ~ ; ■ • — » — 

(a) See note AAA A at the end. 

(b) See vol. v. p. 374. 

(c) Advancement of Learning, vol. ii. p. 94. 

(d) See note 3 I at the end. 

(e) Prince Henry died 6th Nov. 1612. See the intended dedication, in 
note 3 I at the end. See the character of Prince Henry, in Hume's 
history. See Wilson's history. 



CONFESSION OF FAITH. cliH 

to whom it was intended to be dedicated, he inscribed to 
his brother, (a) 

In this year he, as Solicitor General, appeared on behalf 
of the crown, upon the prosecution of the Lord Sanquhar, 
a Scottish nobleman, for murder; and his speech, which 
has been preserved, is a specimen of the mildness ever 
attendant upon knowledge, (b) After having clearly stated 
the case, he thus concludes : " I will conclude toward you, 
my lord, that though your offence hath been great, yet 
your confession hath been free, and your behaviour and 
speech full of discretion ; and this shews, that though you 
could not resist the tempter, yet you bear a christian and 
generous mind, answerable to the noble family of which 
you are descended, (c) 

(a) To my loving Brother, Sir John Constable, Knight. # 

My last essays I dedicated to my dear brother, Master 
Anthony Bacon, who is with God. Looking amongst my 
papers this vacation, I found others of the same nature; 
which, if I myself shall not suffer to be lost, it seemeth the 
world will not, by the often printing of the former. Missing 
my brother, I found you next, in respect of bond both of 
near alliance and of straight friendship and society, and 
particularly of communication in studies, wherein I must 
acknowledge myself beholding to you ; for as my business 
found rest in my contemplations, so my contemplations 
ever found rest in your loving conference and judgment. 
So washing you all good, I remain 

Your loving brother and friend, Fra. Bacon.^ 
See the dedication to Goldsmith's Traveller. 

(b) See note (c), next page. 

(c) He was executed before Westminster Hall-gate. The reader, for his 
fuller information in this story of the Lord Sanquhar, is desired to peruse 

* Brother to Lady Bacon. f See note 3 I at the end. 



Clii LIFE OF BACON. 

foundation, and, fortunately for the advancement of charity 
and of knowledge, he argued without success, as its va- 
lidity was confirmed; and in 1611 this noble institution 
was opened, to the honour of its munificent founder, who 
preferred the consciousness of doing good to the empty 
honours which were offered to divert him from his course, (a) 
It seems, however, that Bacon's objections to the charity 
were not confined to his argument at the bar, but were the 
expression of his judgment, as he afterwards addressed a 
letter of advice to the King, pointing out many imaginary 
or real defects of the project, (b) in which he says, " I wish 
Mr. Sutton's intentions were exalted a degree; and that 
which he meant for teachers of children, your majesty 
should make for teachers of men ; wherein it hath been my 
ancient opinion and observation, (c) that in the universities 
of this realm, which I take to be of the best endowed 
universities of Europe, there is nothing more wanting 
towards the flourishing state of learning than the honour- 
able and plentiful salaries of readers in arts and profes- 
sions ; for, if you will have sciences flourish, you must ob- 
serve David's military law, which was, c that those which 
staid with the carriage should have equal part with those 
which were in the action.' " (c) 
1612. I n the year 1612, he published a new edition of his 
52. e s Sa y S ^ enlarged and enlivened by illustrations and ima- 

the Prince, g er y>(^) which, upon the sudden death of Prince Henry, (e) 
and 

Essays. — *- ■ — > — 

(a) See note A AAA at the end. 

(b) See vol. v. p. 374. 

(c) Advancement of Learning, vol. ii. p. 94. 

(d) See note 3 I at the end. 

(e) Prince Henry died 6th Nov. 1612. See the intended dedication, in 
note 3 I at the end. See the character of Prince Henry, in Hume's 
history. See Wilson's history. 



CONFESSION OF FAITH. cliii 

to whom it was intended to be dedicated, he inscribed to 
his brother, (a) 

In this year he, as Solicitor General, appeared on behalf 
of the crown, upon the prosecution of the Lord Sanquhar, 
a Scottish nobleman, for murder; and his speech, which 
has been preserved, is a specimen of the mildness ever 
attendant upon knowledge, (b) After having clearly stated 
the case, he thus concludes : " I will conclude toward you, 
my lord, that though your offence hath been great, yet 
your confession hath been free, and your behaviour and 
speech full of discretion ; and this shews, that though you 
could not resist the tempter, yet you bear a christian and 
generous mind, answerable to the noble family of which 
you are descended, (c) 

(a) To my loving Brother, Sir John Constable, Knight. # 

My last essays I dedicated to my dear brother, Master 
Anthony Bacon, who is with God. Looking amongst my 
papers this vacation, I found others of the same nature; 
which, if I myself shall not suffer to be lost, it seemeth the 
world will not, by the often printing of the former. Missing 
my brother, I found you next, in respect of bond both of 
near alliance and of straight friendship and society, and 
particularly of communication in studies, wherein I must 
acknowledge myself beholding to you ; for as my business 
found rest in my contemplations, so my contemplations 
ever found rest in your loving conference and judgment. 
So wishing you all good, I remain 

Your loving brother and friend, Fit a. Bacon. f 
See the dedication to Goldsmith's Traveller. 

(b) See note (c), next page. 

(c) He was executed before Westminster Hall-gate. The reader, for his 
fuller information in this story of the Lord Sanquhar, is desired to peruse 

* Brother to Lady Bacon. f See note 3 I at the end. 



General. 



cliv LIFE OF BACOiY. 

During the time he was Solicitor, he composed, as it 
seems, his " Confession of Faith." (a) 
Attorney Bacon as Solicitor naturally looked forward to the office 
of Attorney General, to which he succeeded on the 27th of 
October, upon the promotion of Sir Henry Hobart to the 
Chief Justiceship of the Common Pleas, (b) Never was 
man more qualified for the office of Attorney General than 
Bacon. With great general knowledge, ever tending to 
humanize (c) and generate a love of improvement • (d) with 
great insight into the principles of politics (e) and of uni- 
versal justice, (e) and such worldly experience as to enable 
him to apply his knowledge to the times in which he lived. 
" Non in republica, Platonis ; sed tanquam in fsece Ro- 
muli;" with long unwearied professional exertion in the 
law of England, publications upon existing parts of the 
law, and efforts to improve it, he entered upon the duties 
of his office with the well founded hope in the profession, 
that he would be an honour to his name and his country, 



the case in the ninth book of the Lord Coke's reports; at the end of which 
the whole series of the murder and trial is exactly related. See also vol. 
vi. p. 167. 

(a) See the preface to vol. vii. p. xix. 

(b) There are extant two letters to Lord Salisbury (see vol. xii. p. 63), 
one to the Chancellor, vol. xii. p. 105, and one to the King, vol. xii. p. 106, 
respecting this appointment. 

(c) Advancement of Learning, vol. ii. p. 80. " It is an assured truth 
which is contained in the verses : 

1 Scilicet ingenuas didicisse fideliter artes, 
Emollit mores, nee sink esse feros." 

It taketh away the wildness and barbarism and fierceness of men's minds ; 
but indeed the accent had need be upon ' fideliter :' for a little superficial 
learning doth rather work a contrary effect." 

(d) Advancement of Learning, vol. ii. p. 82. " The unlearned man 
knows not what it is to descend into himself, or to call himself to account; 
nor the pleasure of that ' suavissima vita, indies sentire se fieri meliorem/ " 

(e) See note C C at the ead. 



ATTORNEY GENERAL. civ 

and without any fear that he would be injured by the 
dangerous authority with which he was entrusted. Al- 
though power has, upon ordinary minds, a tendency to 
shape and deprave the possessor, upon intelligence it tends 
more to humble than to elevate. When Cromwell, indig- 
nant that Sir Matthew Hale had dismissed a jury because 
he was convinced that it had been partially selected, said 
to this venerable magistrate, " You are not fit to be a 
judge," Sir Matthew answered, " It is very true." When 
Alexander received letters out of Greece of some fights 
and services there, which were commonly for a passage 
or a fort, or some walled town at the most, he said, " It 
seemed to him, that he was advertised of the battle of 
the frogs and the mice, that the old tales went of: so cer- 
tainly, if a man meditate much upon the universal frame 
of nature, the earth with men upon it, the divineness of 
souls except, will not seem much other than an ant-hill, 
where as some ants carry corn, and some carry their 
young, and some go empty, and all to and fro a little heap 
of dust." (a) 

With the duties of the office he was well acquainted. 
As a politician he never omitted an opportunity to amelio- 
rate the condition of society, and exerted himself in all the 
usual House of Commons questions : thus dilating and 
contracting his sight and too readily giving up to party 
what was meant for mankind. As public prosecutor, he 
did not suffer the arm of justice to be weakened either by 
improper lenity or severity at variance with public feeling, (b) 



(a) Advancement of Learning, vol. ii. p. 81. 

(b) See his advice to Villiers, vol. vi. p. 419, in which he says, " A 
word more, if you please to give me leave, for the true rules of moderation 
of justice on the King's part. The execution of justice is committed to his 
judges, which seemeth to be the severer part; but the milder part, which 



clvi LH<E OF BACON. 

Knowing that the efficacy of criminal legislation consists 
in duly poising the powers of law, religion, and morals ; 
and being aware of the common erroneous supposition, 
that, by an increase in the quantity of any agent, its 
beneficial effects are also increased, (a) he warned the com- 
munity that the acerbity of a law ever deadened the execu- 
tion, by associating compassion with guilt, and confounding 
the gradation of crime, and that the sentiment of justice in 
the public mind is as much or more injured by a law which 
outrages public feeling, as by a law which falls short or 
disappoints the just indignation of the community. 

But, not confining his professional exertions to the dis- 
charge of the common duties of a public prosecutor, he 
availed himself of his situation to advance justice and 
humanity, and composed a work for compiling and 
amending the laws of England, which he dedicated to 
the King, (a) " Your majesty," he says, " of your favour 
having made me privy councillor, and continuing me in 
the place of your Attorney General, I take it to be my 
duty not only to speed your commandments and the busi- 
ness of my place, but to meditate and to excogitate of 
myself, wherein I may best, by my travails, derive your 
virtues to the good of your people, and return their thanks 



is mercy, is wholly left in the King's immediate hand : and justice and 
mercy are the true supporters of his royal throne. 

" If the King shall be wholly intent upon justice, it may appear with an 
over- rigid aspect; but if he shall be over-remiss and easy, it draweth upon 
him contempt. Examples of justice must be made sometimes for terror to 
some; examples of mercy sometimes, for comfort to others; the one pro- 
cures fear, and the other love. A king must be both feared and loved, 
else he is lost. 7 ' 

(a) Debent igitur homines ludibrium illud mulieris iEsopi cogitare; 
quae spertirat ex duplicata mensura, hordei gallinam suam duo ova quotidie 
parituram. At ilia impinguata nullum peperit. — De Augmentis, lv. v. 8. 
p. 267. 



THE PARLIAMENT. dvii 

and increase of love to you again. And after I had 
thought of many things, I could find, in my judgment, 
none more proper for your majesty as a master, nor 
for me as a workman, than the reducing and recompiling 
the laws of England." («) 

In this tract, having traced the exertions of different 
legislators from Moses to Augustus, he says, " Csesar si ab 
eo quaereretur quid egisset in toga, leges se respondisset 
multas et prseclarus tulisse;" and his nephew Augustus 
did tread the same steps but with deeper print, because of 
his long reign in peace, whereof one of the poets of his 
time saith, 

" Pace data terris animum ad civilia vertit 
Jura suum, legesque tajit justissimus auctor." (b) 

From July, 1610, until this period, there had not been 1614. 
any parliament sitting ; and the King, unable to procure -EX 54. 
the usual supplies, had recourse, by the advice of Lord 
Salisbury, to modes injurious to himself, and not warranted 
by the constitution. Bacon, foreseeing the evils which 
must result from these expedients, implored the King to 
discontinue them, and to summon a parliament, (c) 

(a) See note C C at the end. 

(b) So, too, Sir Samuel Romilly, who was animated by a spirit public 
as nature, was no sooner promoted to the office of Solicitor General, 
than he submitted to parliament his proposals for the improvement of the 
bankrupt law and the criminal law. " Long," he says, " has England 
been a scene of carnage and desolation; a brighter prospect has now 
opened before us. 

< Peace hath her victories 

Not less renowned than war."* 

* Multis ille flebilis occidit 
Nulli flebilior mihi. 

(c) * # # I will make two prayers unto your majesty. 
The one is, that these cogitations of want do not any ways 



clviii LIFE OF BACON". 

A parliament was accordingly summoned, and met in 
April, 1614, when the question, whether the Attorney- 
General was eligible to sit in the house was immediately- 
agitated; and, after debate and search of precedents, it 
was resolved, that, by reason of his office, he ought not 

trouble or vex your mind. I remember Moses saith of the 
land of promise, that it was not like the land of Egypt 
that was watered with a river, but was watered with 
showers from heaven; whereby I gather, God preferreth 
sometimes uncertainties before certainties, because they 
teach a more immediate dependance upon his providence. 
Sure I am, nil novi accidit vobis. It is no new thing for 
the greatest kings to be in debt ; and, if a man shall parvis 
componere magna, I have seen an Earl of Leicester, a Chan- 
cellor Hatton, an Earl of Essex, and an Earl of Salisbury 
in debt ; and yet was it no manner of diminution to their 
power or greatness. 

My second prayer is, that your majesty, in respect of 
the hasty freeing of your estate, would not descend to any 
means, or degree of means, which carrieth not a symmetry 
with your majesty and greatness. He is gone from whom 
those courses did wholly flow. So have your wants and 
necessities in particular, as it were, hanged up in two 
tablets before the eyes of your Lords and Commons, to be 
talked of for four months together; to have all your courses 
to help yourself in revenue or profit put into printed books, 
which were wont to be held arcana imperii; to have such 
worms of aldermen to lend for ten in the hundred upon 
good assurance, and with such * # , as if it should save the 
bark of your fortune ; to contract still where might be had 
the readiest payment, and not the best bargain ; to stir a 
number of projects for your profit, and then to blast them, 
and leave your majesty nothing but the scandal of them; 
to pretend an even carriage between your majesty's rights 
and the ease of the people, and to satisfy neither. These 



DUELLING. cl 



IX 



to sit in the House of Commons, as he was an attendant on 
the Lords ; but it was resolved that the present Attorney 
General shall for this parliament remain in the house, 
although this privilege shall not extend to any future 
attorney general. 

Upon his entrance on the discharge of his legal duties, Duelling. 
an opportunity to eradicate error accidentally presented 1 Q 14 ac ' 
itself. Amongst the criminal informations filed in the Star Mt. 54. 
Chamber by his predecessor, he found a charge against 
two obscure persons for the crime of duelling. Of this 
opportunity he instantly availed himself, to expose the 
nature of these false imaginations of honour, by which, 
in defiance of virtue, disregard of the law, and contempt 
of religion, vice and ignorance raise themselves in the 
world upon the reputation of courage; and high-minded 
youth, full of towardness and hope, such as the poets call 
u auroras filii," sons of the morning, are deluded by this 
fond disguise and puppetry of honour, (a) 

courses, and others the like, I hope, are gone with the 
deviser of them, which have turned your majesty to inesti- 
mable prejudice. 

I hope your majesty will pardon my liberty of writing. 
I know these things are majora quam pro fortuna : but 
they are minor a quam pro studio et voluntate. I assure 
myself your majesty taketh not me for one of a busy nature; 
for my state being free from all difficulties, and I having 
such a large field for contemplations, as I have partly, and 
shall much more make manifest to your majesty and the 
world, to occupy my thoughts, nothing could make me 
active but love and affection. So praying my God to bless 
and favour your person and estate, &c. 

(a) In the tract, which may be found in vol. vi. p. 108, 
he considers, 1st, the mischiefs of duelling; 2ndly, the 
causes; 3rdly, the origin, &c. and various other topics. 



Clx LIFE OF BACON. 

Under- The King's great object in summoning a parliament 

was the hope to obtain supplies ; a hope which was totally 
defeated by a rumour that several persons, attached to 



In considering the mischiefs, he says, " It is a miserable 
effect, when young men full of towardness and hope, such 
as the poets call ' aurorse filii,' sons of the morning, in 
whom the expectation and comfort of their friends con- 
sisteth, shall be cast away and destroyed in such a vain 
manner." 

In considering the causes, he says, " The first motive, 
no doubt, is a false and erroneous imagination of honour ; 
by which the spirits of young men, that bear great minds 
are deluded and carried away by a stream of vulgar opi- 
nion, to which men of value feel a necessity to conform. 

He then shews that this invention of modern times origi- 
nated in France, and was unknown to the ancients in 
Greece and Rome the most valiant and generous nations 
of the world ; and when, amongst the Turks, there was a 
combat of this kind performed by two persons of quality, 
wherein one of them was slain ; the other party was con- 
vened before the Bashaw, by whom the reprehension was 
in these words : " How durst you undertake to fight one 
with the other? Are there not Christians enough to 
kill?" 

He then says, " For this apprehension of a disgrace, that 
a fillip to the person should be a mortal wound to the repu- 
tation, it were good that men did hearken unto the saying 
of Gonsalvo, the great and famous commander, that was 
wont to say a gentleman's honour should be " de tela 
crassiore," of a good strong warp or web, that every little 
thing should not catch in it; when, as now, it sems they 
are but of cobweb lawn or such light stuff, which cer- 
tainly is weakness, and not true greatness of mind, but 
like a sick man's body that is so tender that it feels every 
thing." 



UNDERTAKERS. clxi 

the King, had entered into a confederacy, and had under- 
taken to secure a majority to enable him to control the 
house. To pacify the heat, Bacon made a powerful 
speech, (a) in which he ridicules the supposition that any 
man can have embarked in such a wild undertaking as to 
control the Commons of England : to make a policy of 
insurance as to what ship shall come safe home into the 



He concludes by calling upon the lords, " for justice' 
and true honour's sake, honour of religion, law, and the 
King, to co-operate with him against this fond and false 
disguise or puppetry of honour." 

(a) The speech itself may be found in vol. vi. p. 13. 
The following is a short outline of it : " Mr. Speaker," 
he says, " I have been hitherto silent in this matter of 
Undertaking, wherein, as I perceive, the house is much 
enwrapped. 

" First, because to be plain with you, I did not well 
understand what it meant, or what it was; and I do not 
love to offer at that I do not thoroughly conceive. That 
private men should undertake for the Commons of Eng- 
land : why ? a man might as well undertake for the four 
elements : it is a thing, so giddy, and so vast : it is so 
wild for any man to think that he can make a policy of 
insurance as to what ship shall come safe home into the 
harbour in these troubled seas," &c. as in the text. 

" The second reason that made me silent was, because 
this suspicion and rumour of undertaking settles upon no 
person certain. It is like the birds of paradise," &c. as in 
the text. 

" And lastly, since I perceive that this cloud still hangs 
over the house, and that it may do hurt, as well in fame 
abroad as in the King's ear, I resolved with myself to do 
the part of an honest voice in this house, to counsel you 
what I think to be for the best." 

vol. xv» m 



clxii LIFE OF BACON. 

harbour in these troubled seas ; to find a new passage for 
the King's business, by a new and unknown point of the 
compass : to build forts to intimidate the house, unmind- 
ful that the only forts by which the King of England can 
command, is the fort of affection moving the hearts, and 
of reason the understandings of his people. He then 
implores the house not to listen to these idle rumours, 
existing only in the imagination of some deluded enthu- 
siast, who like the fly upon the chariot wheel, says, What 
a dust do I raise ! and, being without foundation or any 
avowed author, are like the birds of paradise, without 
feet, and never lighting upon any place, but carried away 
by the wind whither it listeth. Let us then," he adds, 
" instead of yielding to these senseless reports, deliberate 
upon the perilous situation in which the government is 
placed : and, remembering the parable of Jotham, in the 
case of the trees of the forest, that when question was, 
whether the vine should reign over them? that might 
not be; — and whether the olive should reign over them? 
that might not be, let us consider whether we have not 
accepted the bramble to reign over us. For it seems that 
the good vine of the King's graces, that is not so much 
in esteem : and the good oil, whereby we should relieve 
the wants of the estate and crown, is laid aside ; and this 
bramble of contention and emulation, this must reign and 
rule amongst us." 

Having examined and exposed all the arguments, he 
concludes by saying : " Thus I have told you mine opinion. 
I know it had been more safe and politic to have been 
silent; but it is more honest and loving to speak. When 
a man speaketh, he may be wounded by others ; but if he 
holds his peace from good things, he wounds himself." 

The exertions of Bacon and of the King's friends being, 
however, of no avail, the King, seeing no hope of assist- 



BENEVOLENCE. clxiii 

ance, in anger dissolved the parliament, and committed 
several of the members who had spoken freely of his 
measures. 

This violence, instead of allaying, increased the ferment June, 
in the nation; and, unable to obtain a supply from par- 
liament, and being extremely distressed for money, several 
of the nobility and clergy in and about London, made 
presents to the King; and letters were written to the 
sheriffs and justices in the different counties, and to ma- 
gistrates of several corporations, informing them what had 
been done in the metropolis, and how acceptable and 
seasonable similar bounty would be from the country. 

Amongst others, a letter was sent to the Mayor of 
Marlborough in Wiltshire, where Mr. Oliver St. John, a 
gentleman of an ancient family, was then residing, who 
wrote to the mayor on the 11th of October, 1614, repre- 
senting to him that this benevolence was against law, 
reason, and religion, (a) and insinuating that the King, by 



(a) Wilson says, " These fair blossoms not producing the hoped-for 
fruit, they find out new projects to manure the people ; different much in 
name and nature ; a benevolence extorted ; a free gift against their wills 
was urged upon them, and they that did not give in their money must give 
in their names, which carried a kind of fright with it. But the most know- 
ing men (like so many pillars to the kingdom's liberties) supported their 
neighbour's tottering resolutions, with assuring them that these kind of 
benevolences were against law, reason, and religion. 

" First, against law, being prohibited by divers acts of parliament ; and 
a curse pronounced against the infringers of them. 

u Secondly, against reason, that a particular man should oppose his 
judgment and discretion to the wisdom and judgment of the King assembled 
in parliament, who have there denied any such aid. 

" Thirdly, against religion, that a king violating his oath (taken at his 
coronation for maintaining the laws, liberties, and customs of the realm) 
should be assisted by the people in an act of so much injustice and 
impiety. These and many other arguments, instilled into the people by 
some good patriots, were great impediments to the benevolence ; so that 



clxiv LIFE OF BACON. 

promoting it, had violated his coronation oath, and that, 
by such means as these, King Richard the Second had 
given an opportunity to Henry the Fourth to deprive him 
of his crown; desiring, if he thought fit, that his senti- 
ments should be communicated to the justices who were 
to meet respecting the benevolence. 

For this letter, Mr. St. John was tried in the Star 
Chamber on the 15th of April r 1615; when, the Attorney 
General appearing, of course, as counsel for the crown, 
the defendant was fined £5000., imprisoned during the 
King's pleasure, and ordered to make submission in writing. 

So deeply were the judges impressed with the enormity 
of this offence, that some of the court thought the crime 
of a higher nature than a contempt, but they all agreed 
that the benevolence was not restrained by any statute; 
and the Lord Chancellor, who was then, as he supposed, 
on his death-bed, more than once expressed his anxiety 
that his passing sentence upon Mr. St. John might be his 
last act of judicial duty..(«) 



they got but little money, and lost a great deal of love : for no levies do so> 
much decline and abase the love and spirits of the people as unjust levies. 
Subsidies get more of their money, but exactions enslave the mind ; for 
they either raise them above, or depress them beneath their sufferings^ 
which are equally mischievous, and to be avoided." 

(a) A letter reporting the state of my Lord Chancellor's health, 
Jan. 29, 1614. 

It may please your excellent Majesty, — Because I know your majesty 
would be glad to hear how it is with my Lord Chancellor; and that it 
pleased him out of his ancient and great love to me, which many times in 
sickness appeareth most, to admit me to a great deal of speech with him 
this afternoon, which during these three days he hath scarcely done to any ; 
I thought it might be pleasing to your majesty to certify you how I found 
him. I found him in bed, but his spirits fresh and good, speaking stoutly, 
and without being spent or weary, and both willing and beginning of him- 
self to speak, but wholly of your majesty's business. Wherein I cannot 



BENEVOLENCE. clxv 

Such was the state of the law and of the opinion of 
justice which at that time prevailed ! (a) 



forget to relate this particular, that he wished that his sentencing of I. S. at 
the day appointed might be his last work, to conclude his services, and 
express his affection towards jour majesty. I told him I knew your 
majesty would be very desirous of his presence that day, so it might be 
without prejudice, but otherwise your majesty esteemed a servant more than 
a service, especially such a servant. Not to trouble your majesty, though 
good spirits in sickness be uncertain calendars, yet I have very good com- 
fort of him, and I hope by that day, &c. 

See to the same effect, a letter of Feb. 7, 1614, entitled, A letter to the 
King, touching my Lord Chancellor's amendment, and the putting off 
L S. his cause. 

{a) Bacon's speech has fortunately been preserved, 5 *— 
" In the last parliament there was/' he says, " a great and 
reasonable expectation in the community that the people 
would grant to the King such supplies as were necessary 
for the maintenance of the government: and there was in 
the house a general disposition to give, and to give largely. 
The clocks in the house, perchance, might differ; some 
went too fast, some went too slow : but the disposition to 
give was general. It was, however, by an accident de- 
feated; and this accident, happening thus contrary to 
expectation, it stirred up and awaked, in divers of his 
majesty's worthy servants and subjects, of the clergy, the 
nobility, the court, and others here near at hand, an affec- 
tion loving and cheerful, to present the King some with 
plate, some with money, as a freewill offering. As the 
occasion did awake the love and benevolence of those that 
were at hand to give, so it was apprehended and thought 
fit, by my lords of the council, to make a proof whether 
the occasion and example both would not awake those in 

* See vol. vi. p. 138. It is entitled, The Charge given by Sir Francis 
Bacon, his Majesty's Attorney General, against Mr. I. S. for scandalizing 
and traducing, in the public sessions, letters sent from the Lords of the 
Council touching the benevolence, 



clxvi LIFE OF BACON. 

The dissatisfaction which existed in the community, at 
the state of the government, now manifested itself in 
various modes, and was, according to the usual efforts of 



the country, of the better sort to follow. Whereupon, their 
lordships devised and directed letters unto the sheriffs and 
justices, which declared what was done here above, and 
wished that the country might be moved, especially men 
of value. Care was however taken, that that which was 
then done might not have the effect, no nor the shew, no 
nor so much as the shadow of a tax : breeding or bringing 
in, any ill precedent or example. It was not so much as 
recommended, until many that were never moved nor dealt 
with, ex mero motu, had freely and frankly sent in their 
presents. The whole carriage of the business had no cir- 
cumstance compulsory. There was no proportion or rate 
set down, not so much as by way of a wish : there was no 
menace of any that should deny ; no reproof of any that 
did deny, no certifying of the names of any that had 
denied. It was a benevolence, not an exaction; it was 
what the subject of his good will would give, not what the 
King of his good will would take. 

Amongst other countries, these letters of the lords came 
to the justices of Devonshire, who signified the contents 
thereof, and gave directions and appointments for meet- 
ings, concerning the business, to several towns and places 
within that county, and amongst the rest, notice was 
given unto the town of A. The mayor of A. conceiving 
that this Mr. I. S. (being a principal person, and a 
dweller in that town) was a man likely to give both money 
and good example, dealt with him, to know his mind ; 
but he, instead of sending an answer, absented himself, 
and published a seditious accusation against the King 
and the state, and sent it to the mayor to read at the 
meeting." 

He then divides the libel into four parts, saying, " The 



PROSECUTIONS. clxvii 

power, attempted to be repressed by criminal prosecu- 
tions. Amongst others, the Attorney General was employed 
in the prosecution for high treason of a Mr. Peacham, 

first of these, which concerns the King, I have taken to 
myself, the other three I have distributed to my fellows ; 
and the part which I have selected gives me a just and 
necessary occasion to make some representation of his 
majesty, such as truly he is found to be in his government. 

" My lords, I do not mean to make any panegyric or 
laudative, but it is fit to burn incense where evil odours 
have been cast and raised. The libel says King James is a 
violator of the liberties, laws, and customs of his kingdoms. 
I say he is a constant protector and conservator of them 
all: in maintaining religion; in maintaining the laws of 
the kingdom, which is the subject's birthright; in tempe- 
rate use of the prerogative ; in due and free administration 
of justice, and conservation of the peace of the land. 

" For religion, he hath maintained it not only with sceptre 
and sword, but by his pen. He hath awaked and reautho- 
rized the whole party of the reformed religion throughout 
Europe, which through the insolency, and diverse artifices 
and enchantments of the adverse part, was dejected. He 
hath summoned the fraternity of kings to enfranchise 
themselves from the usurpation of the see of Rome. He 
hath made himself a mark of contradiction for it. 

" I cannot remember religion and the church, but I must 
think of the seedplots of the same, which are the univer- 
sities, to which he hath been a benign or benevolent 
planet, by whose influence those nurseries and gardens of 
learning were never more in flower nor fruit. 

" For the maintaining of the laws, which is the hedge 
and fence about the liberty of the subject, I may truly 
affirm it was never in better repair. He doth concur with 
the votes of the nobles, Nolumus leges Anglm mutare. 
He is an enemy of innovation ; neither doth the univer- 



clxvil LIFE OF BACON. 

a clergyman between sixty and seventy years of age; of 
Mr. Owen, of Godstow in Oxfordshire, a gentleman of 
property and respectability; and of William Talbot, an 
Irish barrister, for maintaining, in different modes, that, if 

sality of his own knowledge carry him to neglect or pass 
over the very forms of the laws of the land. 

" As for the use of the prerogative, it runs within the 
ancient channels and banks ; some things that were con- 
ceived to be in some proclamations, commissions, and 
patents as overflows, have been by his wisdom and care 
reduced, whereby, no doubt, the main channel of his pre- 
rogative is so much the stronger; for evermore overflows 
do hurt the channel. 

" As for administration of justice, my lords here of the 
council and the King himself meddle not (as hath been 
used in former times) with matters of meum and tuum, 
but leave them to the King's courts of law or equity; and 
for mercy and grace (without which there is no standing 
before justice), we see the King now hath reigned twelve 
years in his white robe, without almost any aspersion of 
the crimson die of blood. There sits my Lord Hobart, that 
served Attorney seven years : I served with him. We 
were so happy, as there passed not through our hands 
any one arraignment for treason, and but one for any 
capital offence, which was that of the Lord Sanquhar; the 
noblest piece of j ustice (one of them) that ever came forth 
in any king's times. As for penal laws, which lie as snares 
upon the subjects, it yields a revenue that will scarce 
pay for the parchment of the King's records at West- 
minster. 

" And lastly, for peace; we see manifestly, his majesty 
bears some resemblance of that great name, a prince of 
peace; he hath preserved his subjects, during his reign, in 
peace both within and without, Touching the benevolence, 
I leaye it to others." 



TRIAL OF PEACHAM. clxix 

the King were excommunicated and deprived by the Pope, 
it was lawful for any person to kill him. 

The prosecution against Peacham was for several trea- 
sonable passages in a sermon, found in his study, but 
never preached, and never intended to be preached, (a) 

Doubts being entertained both of the fact with respect 
to the intention to preach, and of the law supposing the 
intention to have existed, recourse was had to expedients 
from which, in these enlightened times, we recoil with 
horror. 

To discover the fact, this old clergyman was put upon 
the rack, and was examined " before torture, in torture, 
between torture, and after torture," but no confession was 
extorted, which was instantly communicated by Bacon to 
the King, (b) 

(</) Cro. Cas. 125. 
(b) A Letter to his Majesty, concerning Peacham's cause. 

It may please your excellent Majesty, — It grieveth me 
exceedingly, that your majesty should be so much troubled 
with this matter of Peacham's ; whose raging devil seemeth 
to be turned into a dumb devil. But although we are 
driven to make our way through questions (which I wish 
were otherwise) yet I hope well the end will be good. But 
then every man must put to his helping hand ; for else I 
must say to your majesty, in this and the like cases, as 
St. Paul said to the centurion, when some of the mariners 
had an eye to the cock-boat, " except these stay in the 
ship, ye cannot be safe." I find in my lords great and 
worthy care of the business. And for my part, I hold my 
opinion and am strengthened in it by some records that I 
have found. God preserve your majesty. Your majesty's 
most humble and devoted subject and servant. 
21st January, 1614. 



clxx LIFE OF BACON. 

To be certain of the law, the King resolved to obtain 
the opinions of the judges before the prosecution was com- 
menced. For this purpose, the Attorney General was 
employed to confer with Sir Edward Coke, Mr. Serjeant 
Montague to speak with Justice Crooke, Mr. Serjeant 



To the King. 

May it please your most excellent Majesty, — I send 
your majesty enclosed a copy of our last examination of 
Peacham,^ taken the 10th of this present; whereby your 
majesty may perceive that this miscreant wretch goeth 
back from all, and denieth his hand and all; no doubt 
being fully of belief that he should go presently down to 
his trial, he meant now to repeat his part which he pur- 
posed to play in the country, which was to deny all. But 
your majesty in your wisdom perceiveth that this denial of 
his hand, being not possible to be counterfeited, and to be 
sworn by Adams, and so oft by himself formerly confessed 
and admitted, could not mend his case before any jury in 
the world, but rather aggravateth it by his notorious impu- 
dency and falsehood, and will make him more odious. 
He never deceived me ; for when others had hopes of dis- 
covery, and thought time well spent that way, I told your 
majesty, pereuntibus mille figure ; and that he now did 
but turn himself into divers shapes, to save or delay his 
punishment. And therefore, submitting myself to your 
majesty's high wisdom, I think myself bound in conscience 
to put your majesty in remembrance, whether Sir John 
Sydenham # shall be detained upon this man's impeach- 
ing, in whom there is no truth. Notwithstanding that 
farther inquiry be made of this other Peacham, and that 

* He had been confronted, about the end of February or beginning of 
March, 1614-15, with Mr. Peacham, about certain speeches which had 
formerly passed between them. — MS. letter of Mr. Chamberlain to Sir 
Dudley Carleton, from London, March 2, 1614-15. 






TRIAL OF PEACHAM. clxxi 

Crew with Justice Houghton, and Mr. Solicitor with Jus- 
tice Dodderidge, who were instructed by Bacon that they 
should presently speak with the three judges, before he 
could see Coke ; and that they should not in any case 
make any doubt to the judges, as if they mistrusted they 
would not deliver any opinion apart, but speak resolutely 
to them, and only make their coming to be, to know 
what time they would appoint to be attended with the 
papers. The three judges very readily gave their opinions ; 
but with Sir Edward Coke the task was not so easy : for 
his high and independent spirit refused to submit to these 
private conferences, contrary, as he said, to the custom of 
the realm, which requires the judges not to give opinion 
by fractions, but entirely and upon conference; and that 
this auricular taking of opinions, single and apart, was new 
and dangerous, (a) 

information and lio^ht be taken from Mr. Poulet* and 
his servant, I hold it, as things are, necessary. God pre- 
serve your majesty. Your Majesty's most humble and 
devoted subject and servant, Fr. Bacon. 

March 12, 1614. 

(a) Sir Matthew Hale would never suffer his opinion in any case to be 
known till he was obliged to declare it judicially; and he concealed his 
opinion in great cases so carefully, that the rest of the judges in the same 
court could never perceive it : his reason was, because every judge ought 
to give sentence according to his own persuasion and conscience, and not 
to be swayed by any respect or deference to another man's opinion; and 
by his means it hath happened sometimes, that when all the barons of the 
Exchequer had delivered their opinions, and agreed in their reasons and 
arguments, yet he coming to speak last, and differing in judgment from 
them, hath expressed himself with so much weight and solidity, that the 
barons have immediately retracted their votes and concurred with him. 

* John Poulet, Esq. knight of the shire for the county of Somerset, in 
the parliament which met April 5, 1614. He was created Lord Poulet of 
Henton St. George, June 23, 1627. 



clxxil LIFE OF BACON". 

The answer to this resistance, Bacon thus relates in a 
letter to the King : " I replied in civil and plain terms, 
that I wished his lordship, in my love to him, to think 
better of it; for that this, that his lordship was pleased 
to put into great words, seemed to me and my fellows, 
when we spake of it amongst ourselves, a reasonable and 
familiar matter, for a king to consult with his judges, 
either assembled or selected, or one by one. I added, 
that judges sometimes might make a suit to be spared 
for their opinion till they had spoken with their brethren ; 
but if the King upon his own princely judgment, for 
reason of estate, should think it fit to have it other- 
wise, and should so demand it, there was no declining; 
nay, that it touched upon a violation of their oath, which 
was to counsel the King without distinction, whether it 
were jointly or severally. Thereupon I put him the case 
of the privy council, as if your majesty should be pleased 
to command any of them to deliver their opinion apart and 
in private; whether it were a good answer to deny it, 
otherwise than if it were propounded at the table. To this 
he said, that the cases were not alike, because this con- 
cerned life. To which I replied, that questions of estate 
might concern thousands of lives; and many things more 
precious than the life of a particular; as war and peace, 
and the like." (a) 

By this reasoning Coke's scruples were, after a struggle, 
removed, and he concurred with his brethren in obedience 
to the commands of the King, (b) 

From the progress which knowledge has made, during 
the last two centuries, in the science of justice and its 
administration, mitigating severity, abolishing injurious 
restraints upon commerce, and upon civil and religious 

(a) Vol. xii. p. 128. (6) See note ZZ at the end. 



TRTAL OF PEACHAM. clxxiii 

liberty, and preserving the judicial mind free, almost, from 
the possibility of influence, we may, without caution, 
feel disposed to censure the profession of the law at that 
day for practices so different from our own. Passing out 
of darkness into light, we may for a moment be dazzled, 
and forget the ignorance from which we have emerged ; 
an evil attendant upon the progress of learning, which 
did not escape the observation of Bacon, by whom we are 
admonished, that " if knowledge, as it advances, is taken 
without its true corrective, it ever hath some nature of 
venom or malignity, and some effects of that venom, which 
is ventpsity or swelling. This corrective spice, the mixture 
whereof maketh knowledge so sovereign, is charity; of 
which the apostle saith, ' If I spake with the tongues of 
men and angels, and had not charity, it were but as a 
tinkling cymbal." ' (a) 

For having thus acted in obedience to the King's com- 
mands, by a compliance with error sanctioned by the prac- 
tice of the profession, Bacon has, without due consideration 
been censured by a most upright, intelligent judge of 
modern times, who has thus indirectly accused the bar as 
venal, and the bench as perjured, (b) 

To this excellent man posterity has been more just: we 
do not brand Judge Foster with the imputation of cruelty, 
for having passed the barbarous and disgraceful sentence 
upon persons convicted of high treason, which was not 
abolished till the reign of George the Fourth; nor do we 
censure the judges in and before the time of Elizabeth for 
not having resisted the infliction of torture, sanctioned by 
the law, which was founded upon the erroneous principle 
that men will speak truth, when under the influence of a 

(a) Advancement of Learning, vol. ii. p. 101. 
(/>) See note Z Z at the end, 



clxXlV LIFE OF BACON. 

passion more powerful than the love of truth ;(«) nor shall 
we be censured, in future times, for refusing, in excessive 
obedience to this principle, to admit the evidence of the 
richest peer of the realm, if he have the interest of six- 
pence in the cause ; nor has Sir Matthew Hale been visited 
with the sin of having condemned and suffered to be 
executed, a mother and her daughter of eleven years 
of age, for witchcraft, under the quaint advice of Sir 
Thomas Brown, one of the first physicians and philosophers 
of his, or, indeed, of any time, who was devoting his life 
to the confutation of what he deemed vulgar errors ! (b) 



{a) Beccaria. " The result of torture, then, is a matter of calculation, 
and depends on the constitution, which differs in every individual, and is 
in proportion to his strength and sensibility; so that to discover truth by 
this method is a problem, which may be better solved by a mathematician 
than a judge, and may be thus stated. The force of the muscles, and the 
sensibility of the nerves of an innocent person being given, it is required to 
find the degree of pain necessary to make him confess himself guilty of a 
given crime." 

(b) Amy Duny and Rose Callender were tried and condemned at Bury 
St. Edmunds, in Suffolk, by the Lord Chief Baron Hale ; an account of 
the trial was printed in his lordship's lifetime. They were tried upon thir- 
teen several indictments : Amy Duny was charged with bewitching Mr. 
Pacey's children, and causing them to have fits, and when Sir Thomas 
Brown, the famous physician of his time, who was in court, was desired by 
my Lord Chief Baron to give his judgment in the case, he declared, " that 
he was clearly of opinion that the fits were natural, but heightened by the 
devil, co-operating with the malice of the witches at whose instance he did 
the villanies ;" and he added, " that in Denmark there had been lately a 
great discovery of witches who used the very same way of afflicting persons, 
by conveying pins into them." This made that great and good man doubt- 
ful, but he was in such fears that he would not so much as sum up the 
evidence, but left it to the jury with prayers, " that the great God of 
Heaven would direct their hearts in that weighty matter." The jury, 
having Sir Thomas Brown's declaration about Denmark for their encou- 
ragement, in half an hour brought them in guilty upon all the thirteen 
indictments. After this my Lord Chief Baron gave the law its course, and 
they were condemned, and died declaring their innocence. 






TRIAL OF PEACH AM. clxXV 

nor will the judges of England hereafter be considered 
culpable for having at one session condemned and left for 
execution six young men and women under the age of 
twenty, for uttering forged one-pound notes ; (a) or for 
having, so late as the year 1820, publicly sold for large 
sums the places of the officers of their courts. 

To persecute the lover of truth for opposing established 
customs, and to censure him in after ages for not having 
been more strenuous in opposition, are errors which will 
never cease until the pleasure of self-elevation from the 
depression of superiority is no more. " These things must 
continue as they have been : so too will that also continue, 
whereupon learning hath ever relied, and which faileth 
not: justificata est sapientia a filiis suis."(6) 

Bacon, unmoved by the prejudice, by which during his 
life he was resisted, or the scurrilous libels by which he 
was assailed, went right onward in the advancement of 
knowledge, the only effectual mode of decomposing error 
Where he saw that truth was likely to be received, he 
presented her in all her divine loveliness. When he could 
not directly attack error, when the light was too strong for 
weak eyes, he never omitted an opportunity to expose it. 
Truth is often silent as fearing her j udge, never as suspecting 
her cause. 

In his letter to the King, stating that Peacham had 
been put to the torture, he says, " though we are driven to 
make our way through questions, which I wish were other- 
wise, (c) yet I hope the end will be good :" and, unable at 



(a) See the public newspaper of December 4, 1820. 

(6) See Advancement of Learning, vol. ii. p. 88. 

(c) See note (b), ante, p. 169. In his apology respecting Essex, he 
says, " For her majesty being mightily incensed with that book, which 
was dedicated to my Lord of Essex, being a story of the first year of 
King Henry IV. thinking it a seditious prelude to put into the people's 



clxxvi LIFE OF BACON. 

that period to counteract the then common custom of 
importuning the judges, he warned Villiers of the evil. 
" By no means," he says, " be you persuaded to inter- 
pose yourself, either by word or letter, in any cause de- 
pending, or like to be depending in any court of justice, 
nor suffer any other great man to do it where you can 
hinder it, and by all means dissuade the King himself 
from it, upon the importunity of any for themselves or 
their friends : if it should prevail, it perverts justice; but 
if the judge be so just, and of such courage, as he ought 
to be, as not to be inclined thereby, yet it always leaves a 
taint of suspicion behind it; judges must be as chaste a& 
Caesar's wife, neither to be, nor to be suspected to be un- 
just; and, Sir, the honour of the judges in their judicature 
is the King's honour, whose person they represent." (a) 

The trial of Peacham took place at Taunton on the 7th 
of August, 1615, before the Chief Baron and Sir Henry 
Montagu. Bacon did not attend, but the prosecution was 
conducted by the King's Serjeant and Solicitor, when the 
old clergyman, who defended himself, "very simply, al- 



head boldness and faction, said, she had an opinion that there was treason 
in it, and asked me if I could not find any places in it that might be 
drawn within case of treason : whereto I answered, for treason surely I 
found none, but for felony very many. And when her majesty hastily 
asked me, wherein ? I told her, the author had committed very apparent 
theft : for he had taken most of the sentences of Cornelius Tacitus, and 
translated them into English, and put them into his text; and another 
time, when the Queen would not be persuaded that it was his writing 
whose name was to it, but that it had some more mischievous author ; and 
said with great indignation, that she would have him racked to produce his 
author: I replied, "Nay, madam, he is a doctor; never rack his person, 
but rack his style ; let him have pen, ink, and paper, and help of books, 
and be enjoined to continue the story where it breaketh off, and I will 
undertake by collating the styles to judge whether he were the author 
or no." 

(a) See Advice to Villiers, vol. vi. p. 400. 



TRIAL OF OWEN. clxxvii 

though obstinately and doggedly enough," was convicted, 
but, some of the judges doubting whether it was treason, 
he was not executed, (b) 

(b) Edmund Peacham, a minister in Somersetshire [MS. letter of Mr. 
Chamberlain, dated January 5, 1614-5]. I find one of both his names, 
who was instituted into the vicarage of Ridge, in Hertfordshire, July 22, 
1581, and resigned it in 1587 [Newcourt Reporter, vol. i. p. 864]. Mr. 
Peacham was committed to the Tower for inserting several treasonable 
passages in a sermon never preached, nor, as Mr. Justice Croke remarks 
in his Reports during the reign of King Charles I. p. 125, ever intended 
to be preached. Mr. Chamberlain, in a letter of the 9th of February, 
1614-5, to Sir Dudley Carleton, mentions Mr. Peacham's having been 
" stretched already, though he be an old man, and, they say, much above 
threescore ; but they could wring nothing out of him more than they had 
at first in his papers. Yet the king is extremely incensed against him, 
and will have him prosecuted to the uttermost." In another letter, dated 
February 23, we are informed that the king, since his coming to London 
on the 15th, had had "the opinion of the judges severally in Peacham's 
case; and it is said, that most of them concur to find it treason; yet my 
lord chief justice [Coke] is for the contrary ; and if the Lord Hobart, that 
rides the western circuit, can be drawn to jump with his colleague, the 
chief baron [Tanfield], it is thought he shall be sent down to be tried, and 
trussed up in Somersetshire." In a letter of the 2nd of March, 1614-5, 
Mr. Chamberlain writes, " Peacham's trial at the western assizes is put off, 
and his journey stayed, though Sir Randall Crew, the king's Serjeant, and 
Sir Henry Yelverton, the solicitor, were ready to go to horse to have waited 
on him there." " Peacham, the minister," adds he, in a letter of the 13th 
of July, 1615, " that hath been this twelvemonth in the Tower, is sent down 
to be tried for treason in Somersetshire, before the lord chief baron and Sir 
Henry Montagu, the recorder. The Lord Hobart gave over that circuit 
the last assizes. Sir Randall Crew and Sir Henry Yelverton, the king's 
Serjeant and solicitor, are sent down to prosecute the trial." The event of 
this trial, which was on the 7th of August, appears from Mr. Chamberlain's 
letter of the 14th of that month, wherein it is said that " seven knights 
were taken from the bench, and appointed to be of the jury. He defended 
himself very simply, but obstinately and doggedly enough. But his offence 
was so foul and scandalous, that he was condemned of high treason ; yet 
not hitherto executed, nor perhaps shall be, if he have the grace to submit 
himself, and shew some remorse. He died, as appears from another letter 
of the 27th of March, 1616, in the jail at Taunton, where he was said to 
have " left behind a most wicked and desperate writing, worse than that he 
was eonvicted for." 

vol. xv. n 



clxxvili LIFE OF BACON. 

The same course of private consultation with the judges 
would have been adopted in the case of Owen, had not 
the Attorney General been so clear in his opinion of the 
treason, as to induce him to think it inexpedient to imply- 
that any doubt could be entertained, (a) 

His speeches against Owen (b) and Talbot, (c) which are 
preserved, are in the usual style of speeches of this nature, 
with some of the scurrility by which the eloquence of the 
bar was at that time polluted. 

When speaking of the King's clemency, he says, " The 
King has had too many causes of irritation : he has been 
irritated by the Powder treason, when, in the chair of 
majesty, his vine and olive branches about him, attended 
by his nobles and third estate in parliament, he was, in 
the twinkling of an eye, as if it had been a particular 
doomsday, to have been brought to ashes, and dispersed to 
the four winds. — He hath been irritated by wicked and 
monstrous libels, and by the violence of demagogues, who 
have at all times infested, and in times of disturbance, 
when the scum is uppermost, ever will infest society ; con- 
fident and daring persons, Nihil tarn verens, quam ne dubi- 
tare aliqud de re, videretur, priding themselves in pulling 



(a) A letter to the King of account of Owen's cause, &e. 11th Feb. 1614. 

It may please your excellent Majesty, — Myself, with the rest of your 
jcounsel learned, conferred with my Lord Cooke and the rest of the judges 
of the King's Bench only, being met at my lord's chamber, concerning the 
business of Owen. For although it be true that your majesty in your letter 
did mention, that the same course might be held in the taking of opinions 
apart, in this which was prescribed and used in Peacham's cause; yet 
both my lords of the council and we, amongst ourselves, holding it in 
a case so clear, not needful ; but rather that it would import a diffidence 
in us, and deprive us of the means to debate it with the judges (if cause 
were) more strongly (which js somewhat) we thought best rather to use 
this form. 

(b) Vol. vi. p. 172. (c) Vol. vi. p. 452. 






VILLIERS. clxxix 

down magistrates, and chaunting the psalm, " Let us bind 
the kings in chains, and the nobles in fetters of iron." 

During this year an event occurred, which materially 
affected the immediate pursuits and future fate of Sir 
Francis Bacon, — the King's selection of a new favourite. 

George Villiers, a younger son of Sir George Villiers 
and Mary Beaumont, on each side well descended, was 
bom in 1592. Having early lost his father, his education 
was conducted by Lady Villiers, and, though he was natu- 
rally intelligent and of quick parts, more attention was 
paid to the graces of manner and the lighter accomplish- 
ments which ornament a gentleman, than the solid learning 
and virtuous precepts which form a great and good man. 
At the age of eighteen he travelled to France, and, having 
passed three years in the completion of his studies, he 
returned to the seat of his forefathers, in Leicestershire, 
where he conceived an intention of settling himself in 
marriage; but, having journeyed to London, and consulted 
Sir Thomas Gresham, that gentleman, charmed by his 
personal beauty and graceful deportment, advised him to 
relinquish his intention, and try his fortune at court. 
Shrewd advice, which he, without a sigh, obeyed. He 
sacrificed his affections at the first temptation of ambition. 

The King had gradually withdrawn his favour from 
Somerset, equally displeased by the haughtiness of his 
manners, and by an increasing gloom that obscured all 
those lighter qualities which had formerly contributed to 
his amusement, a gloom soon after fatally explained. 
Although powerfully attracted by the elegance and gaiety 
of Villiers, yet James had been so harassed by complaints 
of favouritism, that he would not bestow any appointment 
upon him, until solicited by the Queen and some of the 
gravest of his councillors. In 1613 Villiers was taken 
into the King's household, and rose rapidly to the highest 



clxXX LIFE OF BACON. 

honours. He was nominated cupbearer, received several 
lucrative appointments ; the successive honours of knight- 
hood, of a barony, an earldom, a marquisate, and was 
finally created Duke of Buckingham. 

From the paternal character of Bacon's protection of the 
new favourite, it is probable that he had early sought his 
assistance and advice; as a friendship was formed between 
them, which continued with scarcely any interruption till 
the death, and, indeed, after the death of Bacon: (a) a 
friendship which was always marked by a series of the 
wisest and best counsels, and was never checked by the 
increased power and elevation of Villiers. 

This intimacy between an experienced statesman and 
a rising favourite was naturally looked upon with some 
jealousy, but it ought to have been remembered that there 
was never any intimacy between Bacon and Somerset. In 
the whole of his voluminous correspondence, there is not 
one letter of solicitation or compliment to that powerful 
favourite, or any vain attempt to divert him from his own 
gratifications to the advancement of the public good ; but 
in Villiers he thought he saw a better nature, capable of 
such culture, as to be fruitful in good works. Whatever 
the motives were in which this union originated, the records 
extant of the spirit by which it was cemented are honour- 
able to both. In the courtesy and docility of Villiers, 
Bacon did not foresee the rapacity that was to end in his 
own disgrace, and in the violent death of the favourite. 

About this period, Sir George Villiers personally and by 
letter, importuned his friend to communicate his senti- 
ments respecting the conduct which, thus favoured by the 
King, it would be proper for him to observe; and, con- 
sidering these requests as commands, Bacon wrote a letter 

(«) See Bacon's will. 



VILLIERS. clxxxi 

of advice to Villiers, such as is not usually given in courts, 
but of a strain equally free and friendly, calculated to 
make the person to whom it was addressed both good and 
great, and equally honourable to the giver and the receiver : 
advice which contributed not a little to his prosperity in 
life. It is an essay on the following subjects : (a) 

1. Matters that concern religion, and the church and 
churchmen. 

2. Matters concerning justice, and the laws, and the 
professors thereof. 

3. Councillors, and the council table, and the great 
offices and officers of the k ingdom. 

4. Foreign negociations and embassies. 

5. Peace and war, both foreign and civil, and in that 
the navy and forts, and what belongs to them. 

6. Trade at home and abroad. 

7. "Colonies, or foreign plantations. 

8. The court and curiality. 

Each of these subjects he explains, with a minuteness 
scarcely to be conceived, except by the admirers of his 
works, who well know his extensive and minute survey of 
every subject to which he directed his attention, (b) 

(a) See vol. vi. p. 400. 

(6) From the following analysis, some conception of his vigilance may 
be formed : 

1st, General advice as to Suitors. 

i. Religion. 
1. Protestant religion. 2. Doctrine. 3. Church discipline; its atten- 
tion. 4. Catholics. 5. Archbishops and Bishops. 6. Deans, Canons, 
&c. 7. Clergy. 8. Dissenters. 9. Ceremonies. 10. Vicars, Clergy. 
11. Preservation of revenue of church. 12. Universities. 

ii. Justice. 
1. The Law of the land. 2. Resistance to arbitrary power. 3. The 
Judges. 4. Of private application to them. 5. On the circuits. 6. Their 
duties. 7. Charges to them by the Chancellor. 8. Public and private. 



clxxxii LIFE OF BACON. 

In the beginning of the year 1613 Sir Thomas Overbury 
was poisoned in the Tower by one Weston, of which crime 
he was convicted, received sentence of death, and was exe- 

9. Not to being hurried from term to term. 10. Attendance of sheriffs. 
11. Suing to be a judge. 12. Advancing puisne judges. 13. Serjeants 
at law. 14. King's counsel. 15. Provincial attorneys: of the court of 
Wards. 16. Of the duchy of Lancaster. 17. Welsh Judge. 18. Limi- 
tation of jurisdiction. 19. Ministers of justice. 20, 21. Sheriffs, their 
election. 22. Lord lieutenants. 23. Justices of the peace. 24. Their 
nomination. 25. The moderation of justice. 26. Lenity and severity. 
27. Court of Parliament. 28. Its institution. 29. Its duties. 30. Le- 
gislature. 31. Its judicial power. 32. The House of Commons. 33. The 
use of parliaments. 34. Ecclesiastical law. 

in. Councillors of State and Great Officers of the Kingdom. 
1. Different sorts. 2. Privy council. 3, 4. Their election. 5. Their 
number. 6. Their duties. 7. Impropriety of hasty expression of opinion. 
8. Impropriety of hasty decision. 9. The King's presence. 10. Secretary. 
11. Not to interfere in private causes. 12. Clerks of council. 13. Great 
officers. 14. From all professions. 

iv. Negociations, Embassies, &c. 
1. Queen Elizabeth did vary, according to the nature of the employment, 
the quality of the persons she employed. 2. An embassy of gratulation or 
ceremony, some noble person, eminent in place and able in purse. 3. An 
embassy of weight, concerning affairs of state, choice of some person of 
known judgment, wisdom, and experience; and not of a young man not 
weighed in state matters, nor of a mere formal man. 4. Young noblemen 
or gentlemen, as assistants. 5. Grave men, skilful in the civil laws and 
languages, conversant in courts. 6. Negociation about merchants' affairs, 
doctors of the civil law. 7. Lieger ambassadors or agents, vigilant, indus- 
trious, and discreet men, and had the language of the place. 8. Their 
care to give timely intelligence of occurrences. 9. Their charge. 10. Their 
general instructions in writing, and private instructions. 11. There were 
sent forth young men of good hopes, to be trained up : this course I shall 
recommend unto you, to breed up a nursery of public plants. 

v. Peace and War. I in my own disposition and profession am wholly 
for peace. 
1 . I shall not need to persuade you to the advancing of it, nor the King 
your master. 2. God is the God of peace. 3. Justice is the best pro- 
tector of it, and providence for war is the best prevention. 4. Wars- 



OVERBURY. cl 



XXX111 



cuted. In the progress of the trial suspicions having been 
excited against the Earl and Countess of Somerset, as 
having been deeply concerned in this barbarous act; their 

5. War of invasion. 6. Be always prepared. 7. The navy. 8,9. Tack- 
ling, sails, and cordage. 10. True art of building of ships. 11. Powder 
and ammunition. 12. With mariners and seamen. 13. Sea captains and 
commanders, and other officers. 14. Amity and alliance with the Hol- 
landers. 15. Scotland. 16. Civil war. 17. Competition to the crown. 
18, 19, 20. A king to have a convenient stock of treasure. 21. Magazine 
of all sorts. 22. Expert and able commanders. 23. Governing military 
affairs in times of peace. 24. The faithful, the traitorous, the neutrals. 

vi. Trade. 

1. The home trade. 2. Improve lands. 3. Planting of orchards. 4. 
Gardens. 5. Hop-yards. 6. Planting and preserving woods. 7. Drain- 
ing of drowned lands. 8. Dairies. 9. Land gained from forests and 
chases; due care that the poor commoners have no injury. 10. The 
making navigable rivers. 11. The planting of hemp and flax. 12. Linen 
cloth or cordage. 13. Wools and leather. 14. Costly laces. 15. The 
breeding of cattle. 16. The minerals of the kingdom. 17. Fishing. 18. 
Merchandise in foreign parts. 19. Returns in solid commodities. 20. 
Monopolies. 21. Commission for the managing of these. 

vit. Colonies. 

1. Choice of the place. 2. Colonies raised by leave of the King, not 
by command. 3. Fit governor. 4. Dependency upon the crown of Eng- 
land. 5. General, the common law of England; when plantation settled, 
courts of justice as in England. 6. Assistance of some able and military 
man. 7. The discipline of the church. 8. One continent. 9. Houses; 
plant. 10. Woods; minerals. 11. Build vessels and ships. 12. Wicked 
person nor suffered to go into those countries. 13. No merchant suffered 
to work upon their necessities. 14. Subordinate council. 15. The King's 
profit. 

viii. Court and Curiality. 

1. The King must be exemplary. 2. But your greatest care must be, 
that the great men of his court, for you must give me leave to be plain with 
you, for so is your injunction laid upon me, yourself in the first place, who 
are first in the eye of all men, give no just cause of scandal, either by light, 
or vain, or by oppressive carriage. 3. The great officers of the King. 4. 
Ministerial officers. 5. Leave the ordering of household affairs to the 
white staffs. 6. Green-cloth. 7. His majesty's own table. 8. Preserve 



clxxxiv LTFE OF BACON. 

injudicious friends, by endeavouring to circulate a report 
that these suspicions were but an artifice to ruin that 
nobleman, the King commanded the Attorney General to 
prosecute in the Star Chamber Mr. Lumsden, a gentleman 
of good family in Scotland, Sir John Hollis, afterwards 
Earl of Clare, and Sir John Wentworth, who were con- 
victed and severely punished. The speech of Bacon upon 
this trial is fortunately preserved, (a) 

Shortly after this investigation, so many circumstances 
transpired, all tending to implicate the Earl and Countess 
of Somerset, and so great an excitement prevailed through 
the whole country, that the King determined to bring 
these great offenders to trial ; a resolution which he could 
not have formed without the most painful struggle be- 
tween his duty to the public and his anxiety to protect 
his fallen favourite. His sense of duty as the dispenser of 
justice prevailed. Previous to the trial, which took place 
May 1616, the same course of private consultation with 
the judges was pursued, and the King caused it to be 
privately intimated to Somerset, that it would be his own 
fault if favour was not extended to him : (b) favour which 
was encouraged by Bacon, in a letter to the King, in which 
he says, " The great downfall of so great persons carrieth 
in itself a heavy judgment, and a kind of civil death, 
although their lives should not be taken. All which may 
satisfy honour for sparing their lives." 

In his speech upon the trial (c) Bacon gave a clear and 
circumstantial account of the whole conspiracy against 



the revenues of crown ; empty coffers give an ill sound. 9. Forfeitures. 
10. Pastimes and disports, when there is a queen and ladies. 11. But for 
the King and Prince. 12. Dice and cards. 

(a) Vol. vi. p. 154. 

(6) See letter of April 28, 1616, from Bacon to Villiers, vol. vi. p. 223 

(c) See vol. vi. p. 235. 



SOMERSET. clxXXV 

Overbury, describing the various practices against his life; 
but though he fully and fairly executed his duty as Attorney 
General, it was without malice or harshness, availing him- 
self of an opportunity, of which he never lost sight, to 
recommend mercy ; (b) and though the friends of the new 
favourite were supposed to have been deeply interested in 
the downfall of Somerset, and accused of secretly working 
his ruin, Bacon gained great honour in the opinions of all 
men, by his impartial, and yet merciful treatment of a 
man(c) whom in his prosperity he had shunned and des- 
pised. 

Early in this year a dispute which occasioned consider- 1615. 
able agitation, arose between the Court of Chancery and ^ tm 55, 

(6) " My lords, this is now the second time within the space of thirteen 
years reign of our happy sovereign, that this high tribunal-seat of justice, 
ordained for the trial by peers, hath been opened and erected; and that, 
with a rare event, supplied and exercised by one and the same person, 
which is a great honour to you, my Lord Steward. 

" In all this meantime the King hath reigned in his white robe, not 
sprinkled with any drop of blood of any of his nobles of this kingdom. 
Nay, such have been the depths of his mercy, as even those noblemen's 
bloods, against whom the proceeding was at Winchester, Cobham and 
Grey, were attainted and corrupted, but not spilt or taken away ; but that 
they remained rather spectacles of justice in their continual imprisonment, 
than monuments of justice in the memory of their suffering. 

" I am very glad to hear this unfortunate lady doth take this course, to 
confess fully and freely, and thereby to give glory to God and to justice. 
It is, as I may term it, the nobleness of an offender to confess : and there- 
fore those meaner persons, upon whom justice passed before, confessed 
not ; she doth. I know your lordships cannot behold her without com- 
passion ; many things may move you, her youth, her person, her sex, her 
noble family ; yea, her provocations, if I should enter into the cause itself, 
and furies about her ; but chiefly her penitency and confession. But jus- 
tice is the work of this day ; the mercy-seat was in the inner part of the 
temple ; the throne is public. But since this lady hath by her confession 
prevented my evidence, and your verdict, and that this day's labour is 
eased : there resteth, in the legal proceeding, but for me to pray that her 
confession may be recorded, and judgment thereupon." 

(c) Biographia Brit. 469, art. Bacon. 



Mt 56. 



clxXXvi LIFE OF BACON. 

the Court of King's Bench, respecting the jurisdiction of 
the Chancellor after judgment given in courts of law. 
Upon this dispute, heightened by the warmth and haughti- 
ness of Sir Edward Coke, and the dangerous illness of 
the Chancellor at the time when Coke promoted the 
inquiry, the King and Villiers conferred with Bacon, to 
whom and other eminent members of the profession, the 
matter was referred, and, upon their report, the King in 
person pronounced judgment in favour of the Lord Chan- 
cellor, with some strong observations upon the conduct of 
Coke, (a) 
1616. Pending this investigation, Villiers it seems communi- 
cated to Bacon the King's intention either to admit him a 
member of the privy council, or upon the death or resigna- 
tion of the Chancellor, to entrust him with the great seal, 

(a) Camden's Annals of King James, June 20, 1616. Sanderson's 
Hist, of King James, p. 431. Stephens's Introduction to Lord Bacon's 
Letters, p. 33. See letter from Bacon to the King, dated 21 Feb. 1515-16, 
for a full account of this dispute, its projects, and termination, it will be 
found in vol. xii. page 36. 

A Letter to Sir George Villiers, touching the difference between the 
Courts of Chancery and King's Bench. 

Sir, — I received this morning from you two tetters by the same bearer, the 
one written before the other, both after his majesty had received my last. 
In this difference between the two courts of Chancery and King's Bench 
(for so I had rather take it at this time, than between the persons of my 
Lord Chancellor and my Lord Chief Justice,) I marvel not, if rumour get 
way of true relation ; for I know fame hath swift wings, especially that 
which hath black feathers ; but within these two days (for sooner I cannot 
be ready) I will write to his majesty both the narrative truly, and my 
opinion sincerely, taking much comfort, that I serve such a king, as hath 
God's property, in discerning truly of men's hearts. I purpose to speak 
with my Lord Chancellor this day, and so to exhibit that cordial of his 
majesty's grace, as I hope this other accident will rather rouse and raise 
his spirits than deject him, or incline him to a relapse; meanwhile, I com- 
mend the wit of a mean man that said this other day, well (saith he) next 
term you shall have an old man come with a besom of wormwood in his 



ATTORNEY GENERAL. clxxxvii 

a trust to which he was certain of the Chancellor's recom- 
mendation, (c) 

Having thus discharged the duties of Solicitor and 
Attorney General, with much credit to himself and advan- 
tage to the community, he early in the year 1615-16, ex- 
pressed to Villiers his wish to be admitted a member of 
the privy council, from the hope that he might be of 
service " in times which did never more require a king's 
attorney to be well armed, and to wear a gauntlet and not 
a glove." (d) In consequence of this communication, the 

hand, that will sweep away all this. For it is my Lord Chancellor's 
fashion, especially towards the summer, to carry a posy of wormwood. I 
write this letter in haste, to return the messenger with it. God keep you, 
and long and happily may you serve his majesty. Your true and affec- 
tionate servant. — Feb. 10, 1615. 

Postscript. Sir, I humbly thank you for your inward letter: I have 
burned it as you commanded, but the flame it hath kindled in me will 
never be extinguished. 

(c) See letter to Villiers, 21st Feb. 1615-16, vol. i. p. 1, containing the 
following statement: " My Lord Chancellor told me yesterday, in plain 
terms, that if the King would ask his opinion touching the person that he 
would commend to succeed him, upon death or disability, he would name 
me for the fittest man. You may advise whether use may not be made of 
this offer." 

(d) Another letter to Sir George Villiers, touching a motion to swear 

him Councillor, Feb. 27, 1615. 

Sir, — I humbly pray you not to think me over hasty or much in appetite, 
if I put you in remembrance of my motion of strengthening me with the 
oath and trust of a privy councillor ; not for mine own strength (for as to 
that I thank God I am armed within) but for the strength of my service. 
The times I submit to you who knoweth them best. But sure I am, there 
were never times which did more require a king's attorney to be well armed, 
and (as I said once to you) to wear a gauntlet, and not a glove. The 
arraignments when they proceed; the contention between the Chancery 
and King's Bench ; the great cause of the Rege inconsulto, which is so 
precious to the King's prerogative; divers other services that concern the 
King's revenue, and the repair of his estate. Besides, it pleaseth his majesty 
to accept well of my relations touching his business; which may seem a 



clxxxviii LIFE OP BACOtf. 

King, on the 3rd of June, gave him the option either to be 
made privy councillor, or the assurance of succeeding the 
Chancellor. Bacon, for reasons which he has thus ex- 
pressed in a letter to Villiers, preferred being sworn privy- 
councillor : 

" Sir, the King giveth me a noble choice, and you are 
the man my heart ever told me you were. Ambition would 
draw me to the latter part of the choice ; but in respect of 
my hearty wishes that my Lord Chancellor may live long, 
and the small hopes I have that I shall live long myself, 
and above all, because I see his majesty's service daily 
and instantly bleedeth ; towards which I persuade myself 
(vainly perhaps, but yet in mine own thoughts firmly and 
constantly) that I shall give, when I am of the table, some 
effectual furtherance (as a poor thread of the labyrinth, 
which hath no other virtue but an united continuance with- 
out interruption or distraction), I do accept of the former 
to be councillor for the present, and to give over pleading 
at the bar; let the other matter rest upon my proof and 
his majesty's pleasure, and the accidents of time. For to 
speak plainly I would be loath that my Lord Chancellor, 
to whom I owe most after the King and yourself, should 
be locked to his successor for any advancement or gracing 
of me. So I ever remain your true and most devoted and 
obliged servant. — 3rd June, 1616." 

He was accordingly sworn of the privy council, and took 
his seat at the board on the 9th of June ; it having been 

kind of interloping (as the merchants call it) for one that is no councillor. 
But I leave all unto you, thinking myself infinitely bounden unto you for 
your great favours ; the beams whereof I see plainly reflect upon me even 
from others : so that now I have no greater ambition than this ; that as the 
King sheweth himself to you the best master, so 1 might be found your 
best servant. In which wish and vow I shall ever rest, most devoted and 
affectionate to obey your commands. 



PRIVY COUNCILLOR. clxxxix 

previously agreed, (a) that though in general he should 
cease to plead as an advocate, his permission to give counsel 
in causes should continue, and that if any urgent and 
weighty matter should arise, that he might with the King's 
permission be allowed to plead. Upon this unusual honour 
he was immediately congratulated by the university of 
Cambridge, (b) 

Such were the occupations of this philosopher, who 
during the three years in which period he was Attorney 
General, conducted himself with such prudent moderation 
in so many perplexed and difficult cases, and with such 
evenness and integrity, that his conduct has never been 
questioned, nor has malice dared to utter of him the least 
calumny, (c) 

He now approached his last act as Attorney General, 
which was of the same nature as the first, his prosecution 
of Mr. Markham in the Star Chamber, for sending a chal- 
lenge to Lord Darcy. (d) 

On the 3rd of March, 1616-17, Lord Brackley, then 1616-17. 
Lord Chancellor, being worn out with age and infirmities, ^ L 57 * 
resigned the great seal, and escaped, for a short interval, 
from the troubles of the court of Chancery, over which he 
had presided for thirteen years, amidst the disputes be- 
tween this high tribunal and the courts of common law, 
and the pressure of business which had so increased as to 
have been beyond the power of any individual to con- 
trol, (e) 

On the 7th of the same month, the seals were delivered 
by the King to Sir Francis Bacon, with four admonitions : 

(a) See letter of 5th July, 1616, vol. xii. p. 196. 
(6) See letter of 5th July, 1616, vol. xii. p. 190. 

(c) Mallet's Life of Lord Bacon, p. 19, in a note. 

(d) Hobart's Reports, p. 120. 

(e) See note D D D at the end. 



CXC LIFE OF BACON. 

First, to contain the jurisdiction of the court within its 
true and due limits, without swelling or excess. Secondly, 
not to put the great seal to letters patent as a matter of 
course to follow after precedent warrants. Thirdly, to 
retrench all unnecessary delays, that the subject might 
find that he did enjoy the same remedy against the fainting 
of the soul and the consumption of the estate, which was 
speedy justice. " Bis dat, qui cito dat." Fourthly, that 
justice might pass with as easy charge as might be; and 
that those same brambles, that grow about justice, of need- 
less charge and expense, and all manner of exactions, 
might be rooted out so far as might be. (b) 

Thus was Francis Bacon, then in the fifty-seventh year 
of his age, created Lord Keeper of the Great Seal of 
England. 

In the joy of recent possession he instantly wrote to his 
friend and patron, the Earl of Buckingham, with a pen 
overflowing with the expression of his gratitude. 

My dearest Lord,- — It is both in cares and kindness, 
that small ones float up to the tongue, and great ones sink 
down into the heart in silence. Therefore I could speak 
little to your lordship to-day, neither had I fit time. But 
I must profess thus much, that in this day's work you are 
the truest and perfectest mirror and example of firm and 
generous friendship that ever was in court. And I shall 
count every day lost, wherein I shall not either study your 
welldoing in thought, or do your name honour in speech, 
or perform you service in deed. Good my Lord, account 
and accept me your most bounden and devoted friend and 
servant of all men living, Fr. Bacon, C. S. 

March 7, 1616-17. 

(b) See note E E E at the end. 



LORD KEEPER. CXCl 

Such is the nature of human delight ; such the nature 
of human foresight ! 

As he must have known, what he has so beautifully 
taught, that a man of genius can seldom be permanently 
influenced by worldly distinction : as he well knew that 
his own happiness and utility consisted not in action but 
in contemplation, (a) as he had published his opinion that 
a men in great place are thrice servants ; servants of the 
sovereign or state, servants of fame, and servants of busi- 
ness ; so as they have no freedom, neither in their persons, 
nor in their actions, nor in their times," (b) it is probable 
that he was urged to this and to every other step on the 
road to aggrandizement, either by the importunities of his 
family, or by his favourite opinion, that " knowledge is 
never so dignified and exalted as when contemplation and 
action are nearly and strongly conjoined together: aeon- 
junction like unto that of the two highest planets, Saturn 
the planet of rest and contemplation, and Jupiter the 
planet of civil society and action." 

It has been said by some of the ancient magicians, that 
they could see clearly all which was to befal others, but 
that of their own future life they could discern nothing. 
It might be a curious speculation for any admirer of the 
works of this great man, to collect the oracles he would 
have delivered to warn any other philosopher of the pro- 
bable danger and certain infelicity of accepting such an 
office in such times. 



(a) See note F F F at the end. 

(b) " Thou art become (O worst imprisonment) 
The dungeon of thyself. Thy soul 
Imprisoned, now indeed 

In real darkness of the body, dwells 
Shut up from outward light." — Samson Agonistes. 
Essay on Great Place, vol. i. p. 33. 



CXC11 LIFE OF BACON. 

To the hope of wealth he would have said, " it diverts 
and interrupts the prosecution and advancement of know- 
ledge, like unto the golden ball thrown before Atalanta, 
which, while she goeth aside and stoopeth to take it up, 
the race is hindered. 

" Declinat cursus aurumq. volubile tollit."(a) 

To the importunities of friends he would have answered 
by his favourite maxim, " You do not duly estimate the 
value of pleasures ; for if you observe well, you shall find 
the logical part of some men's minds good, but the mathe- 
matical part nothing worth: that is, they can judge well 
of the mode of attaining the end, but ill of the value of the 
end itself." (b) 

He would have warned ambition that " the seeled dove 
mounts and mounts because he is unable to look about 
him."(c) 

To the supposition " that worldly power is the means to 
do good/' he would have said, " A man who spends his 
life in an impartial search after truth, is a better friend to 
mankind than any statesman or hero, whose merits are 
commonly confined within the circle of an age or a nation, 
and are not unlike seasonable and favouring showers, 
which, though they be profitable and desirable, yet serve 
for that season only wherein they fall, and for a latitude of 
ground which they water; but the benefices of the phi- 
losopher, like the influences of the sun and the heavenly 
bodies, are for time permanent, for place universal: those 
again are commonly mixed with strife and perturbation; 



(a) Advancement of Learning, vol. ii. p. 52. 

(b) Advancement of Learning, vol. ii. p. 286. 

(c) Essay on Ambition, vol. i. p. 127. 



LORD KEEPER. CXClll 

but these have the true character of divine presence, and 
come in aura leni without noise or agitation." (d) 

(d) " Zeno and Chrysippus did greater things in their studies, than if 
they had led armies, borne offices, or given laws; which in truth they did, 
not to one city alone, but to all mankind. Their quiet contributed more to 
the common benefit than the sweat and labour of other people. That 
retreat is not worth the while, which does not afford a man greater and 
nobler works than business. There is no slavish attendance upon great 
officers ; no canvassing for places ; no making of parties ; no disappoint- 
ments in my pretension to this charge, to that regiment, or to such or such 
a title; no buoy of any man's favour or fortune, but a calm enjoyment of 
the general bounties of providence, in company with a good conscience. 
A wise man is never so busy, as in the solitary contemplation of God and 
the works of nature. He withdraws himself to attend the service of future 
ages." Seneca. 

" There were reckoned above human honours, honours heroical and 
divine ; in the distribution whereof antiquity observed this order. Founders 
of states, lawgivers, extirpers of tyrants, fathers of their country, and other 
eminent persons in civil merit, were honoured with the title of Worthies 
only, or Demi-Gods ; such as were Theseus, Minos, Romulus, and the 
like : on the other side, such as were inventors and authors of new arts, and 
such as endowed man's life with new commodities and accessions, were 
ever consecrated among the greater and entire gods, which happened to 
Ceres, Bacchus, Mercury, Apollo, and others, which indeed was done 
justly, and upon sound judgment. The introduction of noble inventions 
seems to hold by far the most excellent place among all human actions. 
And this was the judgment of antiquity, which attributed divine honours 
to inventors, but conferred only heroical honours upon those who deserved 
well in civil affairs, such as the founders of empires, legislators, and deli- 
verers of their country. And whoever rightly considers it will find this a 
judicious custom in former ages, since the benefits of inventors may extend 
to all mankind, but civil benefits only to particular countries or seats of 
men; and these civil benefits seldom descend to more than a few ages, 
whereas inventions are perpetuated through the course of time. Besides, a 
state is seldom amended, in its civil affairs, without force and perturbation, 
whilst inventions spread their advantage, without doing injury, or causing 
disturbance." Advancement of Learning, vol. ii. p. 62. 

In his New Atlantis he says, " We have two very long and fair galle- 
ries : in one of these we place patterns and samples of all manner of the 
more rare and excellent inventions ; in the other we place the statues of all 
principal inventors. There we have the statue of your Columbus, that 
VOL. XV. 



CXC1V LIFE OF BACON. 

The flattering illusion of good to result from the union 
of contemplation and action would have been dissipated by 
the admonition, that the life and faculties of man are so 



discovered the West Tndies ; also the inventor of ships ; your monk, that 
was the inventor of ordnance and of gunpowder ; the inventor of music • 
the inventor of letters ; the inventor of printing ; the inventor of observa- 
tions of astronomy ; the inventor of works in metal ; the inventor of glass ; 
the inventor of silk of the worm; the inventor of wine; the inventor of corn 
and bread ; the inventor of sugars ; and all these by more certain tradition 
than you have. Then have we divers inventors of our own, of excellent 
works, which since you have not seen, it were too long to make descrip- 
tions of them ; and besides, in the right understanding of those descriptions 
you might easily err. For, upon every invention of value, we erect a 
statue to the inventor, and give him a liberal and honourable reward. 
These statues are some of brass; some of marble and touchstone; some of 
cedar and other special woods gilt and adorned ; some of iron ; some of 
silver; some of gold." 

" For my part, I should think of a man who spent his time in such a 
painful impartial search after truth a better friend to mankind than the 
greatest statesman or hero, the advantage of whose labours is confined to a 
little part of the world and a short space of time, whereas a ray of truth 
may enlighten the whole world, and extend to future ages." 

Minute Philosopher. 

" But to speak my mind freely on the subject of consequences, I am 
not so scrupulous perhaps, in my regard to them, as many of my profession 
are apt to be : my nature is frank and open, and warmly disposed, not 
only to seek, but to speak what I take to be true, which disposition has 
been greatly confirmed by the situation into which Providence has thrown 
me. For I was never trained to pace in the trammels of the church, nor 
tempted by the sweets of its preferment to sacrifice the philosophic freedom 
of a studious to the servile restraints of an ambitious life : and from this 
very circumstance, as often as I reflect Upon it, I feel that comfort in my 
own breast which no external honours can bestow. I persuade myself 
that the life and faculties of man, at the best but short and limited, cannot 
be employed more rationally or laudably than in the search of knowledge ; 
and especially of that sort which relates to our duty and conduces to our 
happiness. In these inquiries, therefore, wherever I perceive any glim- 
mering of truth before me, I readily pursue, and endeavour to trace it to 
its source ; without any reserve or caution of pushing the discovery too far, 
or opening too great a glare of it to the public. I look upon the discovery 
of any thing which is true as a valuable acquisition to society ; which can- 



LORD KEEPER. CXCV 

short and limited that this union has always failed, and 
must be injurious both to the politician and to the philoso- 
pher. («) To the politician, as, from variety of speculation, 
he would neither be prompt in action nor consistent in 
general conduct; (b) and as, from meditating upon the 
universal frame of nature, he would have little disposition 
to confine his views to the circle where his usefulness 
might be most beneficial. To the philosopher, as powers 
intended to enlarge the province of knowledge, and en- 
lighten distant ages, would be wasted upon subjects of 
mere temporary interest, debates in courts of justice, and 



not possibly hurt or obstruct the good effect of any other truth whatsoever ; 
for they all partake of one common essence, and necessarily coincide with 
each other : and like the drops of rain, which fall separately into the river, 
mix themselves at once with the stream, and strengthen the general current." 

Middleton. 

(a) " Sed quid ego haec," says Cicero, " quae cupio deponere, et toto 
animo, atq: omni cura Qikovocpeiv. Sic, inquam, in animo est: vellem 
ab initio." 

a Indeed, my lord, I greatly deceive myself, if in this hard season, I 
would give a peck of refuse wheat for all that is called fame and honour in 
the world." Such is the lamentation of Burke. 

" If this," says Lord Bacon, " be to be a Chancellor, I think if the great 
seal lay upon Hounslow Heath, nobody would take it up." 

" In the traditions of astrology, the natures and dispositions of men 
are not without some colour of truth, distinguished from the predomi- 
nancies of planets ; as that some are by nature made and proportioned for 
contemplation, others for matters civil, others for war, others for advance- 
ment, others for pleasure, others for arts, others for changeable course of 
life, but none the union of the opposite qualities of extreme contemplation 
and extreme action." De Aug. 

(b) " Men of genius are rarely either prompt in action, or consistent 
in general conduct. Their early habits have been those of contemplative 
indolence, and the day dreams with which they have been accustomed 
to amuse their solitude adapt them for splendid speculation and temperate 
and practicable counsels." — Coleridge. See similar observations in Aiken's 
Miscellaneous Pieces in Prose, in the Essay against inconsistency in our 
expectations. 



CXCV1 LIFE OF BACON. 

the mechanism of state business. That Bacon should have 
been doomed to such occupations, that he, who stood the 
lofty beacon of science, evermore guiding the exploring 
scholar in voyages of discovery to improve and bless man- 
kind, should voluntarily have descended to the shifting 
quicksands of politics, is a theme for wonder and pity. 
He could have pointed out to another the shoals, the 
sunken rocks, and the treacherous nature of the current ; 
but he adventured, — and little minds can now point out 
where he was lost, and where the waters went over his 
soul." 

Much as it is to be lamented that he should have 
accepted this office, the loss to science seems, in some 
sort, to have been compensated by his entire devotion to 
his professional and political duties : duties for which he 
possessed unrivalled powers. 

It has been truly said by the biographer of Bacon's 
successor, that " the Chancellorship of England is not a 
chariot for every scholar to get up and ride in. Saving 
this one, perhaps it would take a long day to find another. 
Our laws are the wisdom of many ages, consisting of a 
world of customs, maxims, intricate decisions, which are 
responsa prudentum. Tully could never have boasted, if 
he had lived amongst us, Si mihi vehementer occupato sto- 
rnachum moverint, triduo me jurisconsultum prqfitebor. (a) 
He is altogether deceived, that thinks he is fit for the exer- 
cise of our judicature, because he is a great rabbi in some 
academical authors; for this hath little or no copulation 
with our encyclopedia of arts and sciences. Quintillian 
might judge right upon the branches of oratory and philo- 
sophy, Omries disciplinas inter se conjunct ion em rerum, et 



(a) " If the advocates of Rome angered him, though he were full of 
business, he would pass for a lawyer in three days." — Orat. pro Mar. 






LORD KEEPER. CXCV11 

communionem habere, (a) But our law is a plant that grew 
alone, and is not entwined into the hedge of other profes- 
sions ; yet the small insight that some have into deep 
matters, cause them to think that it is no insuperable task 
for an unexpert man, to be the chief arbiter in a court of 
equity. Bring reason and conscience with you, the good 
stock of nature, and the thing is done. Mquitas optimo 
cuique notissima est, is a trivial saying, a very good man 
cannot be ignorant of equity ; and who knows not that 
extreme right is extreme injury? But they that look no 
further than so, are short-sighted : for there is no strain of 
wisdom more sublime, than upon all complaints to measure 
the just distance between law and equity; because in this 
high place, it is not equity at lust and pleasure that is 
moved for, but equity according to decrees and precedents 
foregoing, as the dew-beaters have trod the way for those 
that come after them." (b) 

Of Bacon's fitness for this office, some estimate may be 
formed by a consideration of the four principal qualifica- 
tions of a Chancellor, as 

A Lawyer. 

A Judge. 

A Statesman. 

And the Patron of Preferment. 

As a Lawyer he had for a series of years been engaged 
in professional life. He had been Solicitor and Attorney 
General ; had published upon different parts of the law ; 
had deeply meditated upon the principles of equity, and 
had availed himself of every opportunity to assist in 

(a) " Let all partition of knowledge be accepted rather for lines and 
veines, than for sections and separations." — Adv. of Learning, vol. ii. 
p. 153, where there are similar and valuable observations. 

(b) Hackett's Life of Williams. 



exCVlli LIFE OF BACON. 

improvement of the law, in obedience to his favourite 
maxim, " that every man is a debtor to his profession, 
from the which, as men do of course seek countenance and 
profit, so ought they of duty to endeavour themselves by 
way of amends to be a help and ornament." (a) 

As a Judge, he, from his infancy, had seen the different 
modes in which judicial duties were discharged, had medi- 
tated deeply and published his opinions upon the perfection 
of these duties " to the suitors, to the advocates, to the 
officers of justice underneath them, and to the sovereign 
or state above them:" (b) and, in his addresses to the 
judges upon their appointment or promotion, he availed 
himself of every opportunity to explain them. 

As a Statesman, we have seen that he was cradled in 
politics ; (c) that his works abound with notices of his poli- 
tical exertions ; that his advice to Sir George Villiers is 
an essay upon all the various duties of a statesman, with 
respect to religion, justice, the council table, foreign nego- 
ciations, peace and war, trade, the colonies and the 
court; (d) and of his parliamentary eloquence his friend 
Ben Jonson says, (e) " There happened in my time one 

(a) See ante, pp. cxxxviii and clxvi, and notes C C and 3 G. 

(b) See his Essays on Delay, on Dispatch, and on Judicature. See his 
addresses to the Judges, vol. vii. p. 241 to 270. See postea, and see his 
advice to Villiers, vol. vi. p. 41, " But because the life of the laws lies 
in the due execution and administration of them, let your eye be, in the 
first place, upon the choice of good judges : these properties they had need 
to be furnished with ; to be learned in their profession, patient in hearing, 
prudent in governing, powerful in their elocution to persuade and satisfy 
both the parties and hearers; just in their judgment; and, to sum up all, 
they must have these three attributes ; they must be men of courage, fearing 
God, and hating covetousness ; an ignorant man cannot, a coward dares 
not be a good judge." 

(c) Ante, p. 111. 

(d) See vol. vi. p. 400, ante, p. clxxxi. 

(e) Ante, p. xxviii. I venture here to repeat the passage. 



LORD KEEPER. CXC1X 

noble speaker who was full of gravity in his speaking; 
his language, where he could spare or "pass by a jest, 
was nobly censorious. No man ever spake more neatly, 
more pressly, more weightily, or suffered less emptiness, 
less idleness in what he uttered. No member of his 
speech but consisted of his own graces. His hearers could 
not cough or look aside from him without loss. He com- 
manded where he spoke, and had his judges angry and 
pleased at his devotion. No man had their affections more 
in his power. The fear of every man that heard him was 
lest he should make an end." 

As a Patron, he considered preferment a sacred trust, to 
preserve and promote high feeling, encourage merit, and 
counteract the tendency of learning to dispose men to 
leisure and privateness. («) 

In his advice to Villiers, as to the patrimony of the 
church, he says, " You will be often solicited, and perhaps 
importuned to prefer scholars to church livings : you may 
further your friends in that way, ' cseteris paribus ;' other- 
wise remember, I pray, that these are not places merely of 
favour ; the charge of souls lies upon them, the greatest 
account whereof will be required at their own hands ; but 
they will share deeply in their faults who are the instru- 
ments of their preferment." (b) 

A few weeks after he was appointed Lord Keeper, he 
thus writes to a clergyman of Trinity College, Cambridge : 
" After my hearty commendations, I having heard of you, 



(a) Advancement of Learning, vol. ii. p. 19. 

(b) See vol. vi. p. 410. Sir E. Coke said, " As for the many benefices in 
his own patronage, he freely gave them to the worthy men, being wont to 
say, in his law language, that he would have church livings pass by livery 
and seisin, not bargain and sale." Chancellor Wrottesley said, " Two things 
my servants shall not gain by, my livings and my decrees : the one are 
God's, the other the King's." 



CC LIFE OF BACON. 

as a man well deserving, and of able gifts to become profit- 
able in the church ; and there being fallen within my gift 
the rectory of Frome St. Quintin with the chapel of Ever- 
shot, in Dorsetshire, which seems to be a thing of good 
value, eighteen pounds in the king's books, and in a good 
country, I have thought good to make offer of it to you ; 
the rather for that you are of Trinity college, whereof my- 
self was some time ; and my purpose is to make choice of 
men rather by care and inquiry, than by their own suits 
and commendatory letters. So I bid you farewell. 

From your loving friend, Fr. Bacon, C. S." 
From Dorset House, 23rd April, 1617. 

Upon sending to Buckingham his patent for creating 
him a viscount, he says, " I recommend unto you prin- 
cipally, that w*hich I think was never done since I was 
born, and which, because it is not done, hath bred almost 
a wilderness and solitude in the King's service ; which is 
that you countenance and encourage, and advance able 
men, in all kinds, degrees, and professions. For in the 
time of the Cecils, the father and the son, able men were 
by design and of purpose suppressed ; and though of late 
choice goeth better, both in church and commonwealth, 
yet money and time-serving, and cunning canvasses and 
importunity prevaileth too much. And in places of mo- 
ment, rather make able and honest men yours, than advance 
those that are otherwise, because they are yours." 

And in his appointment of judges, it will be seen that he 
was influenced only by an anxiety to select the greatest 
ability and integrity, " science and conscience," (a) for these 
important trusts. 

In the exercise of this virtue there was not any merit 
peculiar to Bacon. It was the common sympathy for 

(a) Fuller, 



LORD KEEPER. CCI 

intellect, which, from consciousness of the imbecility and 
wretchedness attendant upon ignorance, uses power to 
promote merit and relieve wrongs. It passes by the par- 
ticular infirmities of those who contribute any thing to 
the advancement of general learning : judging it fitter that 
men of abilities should jointly engage against ignorance 
and barbarism. This had many years before his promo- 
tion been stated by Bacon : " Neither can this point 
otherwise be; for learning endueth men's minds with a 
true sense of the frailty of their persons, the casualty of 
their fortunes, and the dignity of their soul and vocation : 
so that it is impossible for them to esteem that any great- 
ness of their own fortune can be a true or worthy end of 
their being and ordainment ; whereas the corrupter sort of 
mere politicians, that have not their thoughts established 
by learning in the love and apprehension of duty, nor ever 
look abroad into universality, do refer all things to them- 
selves, and thrust themselves into the centre of the world, 
as if all lines should meet in them and their fortunes; 
never caring, in all tempests, what becomes of the ship of 
state, so they may save themselves in the cockboat of their 
own fortune." (b) 

(b) " Napoleon happened to see a captain or lieutenant-colonel of 
engineers, who was modestly assisting in the fortifications of the place, 
and with whom he entered into a discussion of certain points connected 
with the business in which he was engaged. Shortly after, the officer 
unexpectedly received a letter, informing him that he was appointed aid- 
de-camp to the Emperor, and directing him to repair to the Tuileries, 
to enter upon his duties. The poor officer was filled with astonishment ; 
he thought he was dreaming, or that the letter had been misdirected. 
He was so extremely diffident, and possessed so little knowledge of the 
world, that this announcement of his promotion threw him into great 
perplexity. He recollected having once seen me at Antwerp, and he 
begged I would render him my assistance. Accordingly, on his arrival 
in Paris, he came and assured me of his total ignorance of court manners, 
and the embarrassment he felt in presenting himself to the Emperor. 



CC11 LIFE OF BACON. 

This truth, necessarily attendant upon all knowledge, is 
not excluded from judicial knowledge. It has influenced 
all intelligent judges: Sir Thomas More; the Chancellor 
de l'Hopital ; Lord Somers, to whom he has been compared ; 
d'Aguesseau; Sir Edward Coke, and Sir Matthew Hale. 
Bacon's favourite maxim therefore was, " Detur digniori: 
qui beneficium digno dat omnes obligat;" and in his 
prayer, (a) worthy of a Chancellor, he daily said, " This 
vine which my right hand hath planted in this nation I 
have ever prayed unto thee that it might stretch her 
branches to the seas and to the floods." 

Whatever were Sir Francis's gratifications, attendant 
upon the dignity of this promotion, in direct pecuniary- 
profit he sustained great loss : as he relinquished his office 
of Attorney General, worth at least £6000. a year, his 
Chancellorship to the Prince, and his post of Registrar of 
the Star Chamber, worth about £1600. a year, (b) whilst 
the direct profits of the great seal were only £918. 15s. (c) 
Of the amount of the indirect profits from fees and pre- 
sents it is, of course, impossible to form a correct estimate. 
It must, however, have been considerable, as, according to 

However, I soon succeeded in encouraging him ; and before he reached 
the gate of the palace, he had mustered a tolerable degree of confidence. 
This officer was General Bernard, whose great talents were brought into 
notice by this circumstance, and who, at the time of our disasters, pro- 
ceeded to America, where he was placed at the head of the military 
works of the United States." — Las Cases, iv. 62. 

" A man who by a partial, prejudiced, or corrupt vote, disappoints a 
worthy candidate of a station in life, upon which his hopes, possibly, or 
livelihood, depended, and who thereby grievously discourages merit and 
emulation in others, commits, I am persuaded, a much greater crime, than 
if he filched a book out of a library, or picked a pocket of a handkerchief." 

Paley. 

(a) Vol. vii. p. 1. 

(b) Biog. Brit. p. 392. 

(c) See note E E E at the end. . 



LORD KEEPER. CC111 

the oriental customs of the times, statesmen were then 
seldom approached by a suitor without some acceptable 
offering. 

The new year's gifts, regularly presented to the King, 
were of immense value, and were given by the great officers 
of state, peers and peeresses, the bishops, knights, and 
their ladies, gentlemen and gentlewomen, and even from 
the tradesmen, and all the officers of the household. These 
presents were chiefly in money, but sometimes varied by 
the taste of the donors. As a matter of curiosity, it may 
be noticed, that Sir Francis Bacon gave to the Queen " one 
petty coat of white sattin, embrodered all over like feathers 
and billets, with three broad borders, fair embrodered with 
snakes and fruitage, c emblems of wisdom and bounty;' 
exhibiting, even at that day, a fancy delighting in splen- 
dour and allegory ;" (a) and so general was the practice, 
that when Bacon applied to the Queen to be appointed 
Solicitor General, his application was accompanied by the 
present of a j ewel. (b) 

This custom of making presents to persons in power 
was not confined to the reigning monarch, but extended 
to statesmen. They were made, as of course, to Lord 
Salisbury, to Lord Burleigh, and to all persons in office, 
and made by the most virtuous members of the com- 
munity, (c) The same custom extended to the Chan- 



(a) See note Z Z Z Z at the end. 

(b) See ante, p. xxxii, and note R R at the end. 

(c) In April, 1595, the Bishop of Durham thus wrote to Lord Burleigh : 
" Right Honourable, Your L. having alwaies been an especial patron to 
the see of Duresme, wherein it hath now pleased God and her majesty to 
place me, thoughe unworthie ; and myself reaping the fruite of your L. 
and extraordinarie furtherance in obtayning the same, I could not without 
great note of ingratitude (the monster of nature) but yelde your L. some 
signification of a thankful minde. And seeking by all good means, but 
contrary to myne expectation, not finding any office or other particular 



Cciv LIFE OF BACON. 

cellor, («) and to the Judges. In the time of Henry the 
Sixth the practice existed, (a) In the time of Sir Thomas 



presentlie voyde, either fitt for me to offer your lordship, or sure for your 
L. to receive at my hande, I have presumed in lieu thereof to present your 
good lordship with an hundred pounds in golde, which this bringer will 
deliver to your L. It is no recompense any waie proportionable, I con- 
fesse, to your lordship's great goodnesse towards me, but onely a sclender 
token of my dutie most bounden to your L. and a pledge of my service 
alwaies to be at your L. commandment afore and above any man alive, 
which I beseech your lordship to accept in such part as is simply and 
faithfully meant. And so desyring the continuance and encrease of your 
L. honorable opinion and favour, of the which I shall endeavour, by God's 
grace, your L. shall never repent yourselfe. I most humblie betake your 
good L. to the blessed tuition of the Almighty. Your Lordship's most 
humble and bounden, Tobias Dunelm." 

A mode of address, which about the same period, was adopted by the 
Duke of Wirtemberg: " Monsieur, Je ne doubte que vous ne soyez 
aduertij de ce que j'ay par cij deuant, comme mesmes auec ceste com- 
modite, escrit et demande humblement a La Serenissime Royne d'Angle- 
terre et de me laisser passer environ 1000 pieces de trap hors le renomme 
royaulme d'Icelle, librement et sans aulcun peage, et pource que je scay, 
que vous pourrez beaucoup en cest affaire. Je vous prye bien fort, vous ij 
employer. Affin que je puisse auoir vne bonne et brefue respounce, telle 
comme je le desire et demande, dont mon commis le present porteur a 
charge, vous je present de ma part vne chaine d'or pov. vos peines. La- 
quelle accepterez : s'il vous plaist de bon cueur. En tous lieux la on 
j'auray moyen de recognoistre cela en vre endroict j'en suis content de vous 
grattiffier a vre contentement, de telle volunte, comme apres mes affec- 
tionnees recommendatione. Prye Dieu vous avoir, Monsieur, en sa sainte 
digne garde. De Stuctgart ce 12me de Decembre, 1594. Vre bien 
afFectionne, Friderich." 

See note Z Z at the end, where various instances will be found . 

(a) Receiving presents was a practice neither uncommon among his 
predecessors in that court, nor, I believe, imputed to them for unrighteous- 
ness. This will appear plainly by the curious anecdote that follows; 
which I myself copied from the original manuscript, in the possession of 
Henry Wise, Esq. of Hampton Court. 

" Declarant etiam executores predicti quod ipsi ad speciale rogatum 
proedicti domini Henrici fili docti Domini nuper comitis, quod erat eis ad 
preceptum, dederunt Domino Cancellario Anglise, 1 shaving bacyn argenti, 
quae erat predicti domini patris sui, viz. Ad excitandum dictum Dominum 



PRESENTS TO JUDGES. CCV 

More, when the custom seems to have been waning, pre- 
sents were, without any offence, offered to that righteous 
man ; (b) and it is mentioned by the biographer of Sir 

Cancellarium fore benevolum et benefacientem materiis dicti Domini Hen- 
rici in curiis Domini regis pendentibus pretium viii£. 

" Declarant etiam executores predicti quod ipsi dederant Domini Archi. 
Cantuariae Cancellario Anglias, J. saultauri ad similitudinem Cervi jacentis 
facti, quod erat dicti domini nuper comitis, appretiatum ad £40. 16s. 8c?. 
ad intentionem ut ipse Dom. Archi. et Cane, suum bonum Dominum et 
auxilium dictis executoribus favorabiliter ostenderet et faceret in certis ma- 
teriis que versus eosdem executores ad grave prejudicium et impedimentum 
debite executionis testamenti et ultime voluntatis dicti Domini nuper 
comitis subtiliter movebantur; ad valentiam sicut predicitur." 

This paper is called, Declaracio Thomse Huggeford, Nicoli Rody et 
Willi. Berkswel presbyter. These were executors and feoffees of Richard 
Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, and this declaration was made in the 21st 
year of Henry the Sixth, to account for certain plate, jewels, and so forth, 
which had come into their hands as his executors. — Copied by me from 
some work, which I cannot, at present, find. B. M. 

(b) His integrity in his office was sufficiently proved by the reduced state 
of his circumstances when he resigned the seals ; but there are two or three 
anecdotes which will serve to illustrate this part of his character. 

After his fall, the Earl of Wiltshire, the father of Anne Boleyne, preferred 
a complaint against him to the council, for having taken a bribe from one 
Vaughan. Sir Thomas confessed that he had received the cup from the 
hands of Vaughan's wife, but immediately ordering the butler to fill it with 
wine, he drank to her, and when she had pledged him, says he, " as freely 
as your husband hath given this cup to me, even so freely give I the same 
to you again, to give your husband for his new year's gift." 

At another time one Gresham having a cause depending in Chancery, 
sent Sir Thomas a fair gilt cup, the fashion of which pleased him so well, 
that he caused one of his own, of more value to be delivered to the mes- 
senger for his master, nor would he receive it on any other condition. 

Being presented by a lady with a pair of gloves, and forty pounds in 
angels in them, he said to her, " Mistress, since it were against good man- 
ners to refuse your new year's gift, I am content to take your gloves, but as 
for the lining, I utterly refuse it." 

The following anecdote of More is given by Lord Bacon in his Essays : 
A person who had a suit in Chancery sent him two silver flagons, not 
doubting of the agreeableness of the present. On receiving them, More 
called one of his servants, and told him to fill those two vessels with the 



CCV1 LIFE OF BACON. 

Augustine Nicholls, one of the judges in the time of 
James the First, as an instance of his virtue, that " he 
had exemplary integrity, even to the rejection of gratuities 
after judgment given, and a charge to his followers that 
they came to their places clear handed, and that they 
should not meddle with any motions to him, that he might 
be secured from all appearance of corruption." (a) 

This custom, which, more or less, seems to have pre- 
vailed at all times in nations approaching civilization, was 
about the year 1560 partially abolished in France by the 
exertions of PHopital, which abolition is thus stated by 
Mr. Butler, in his life of the Chancellor : 

" Another reformation in the administration of justice, 
which PHopital wished to effect, was the abolition of the 
epices, or presents made, on some occasions, by the parties 
in a cause, to the judges by whom it was tried. 

" A passage in Homer, (b) where he describes a com- 
partment in the shield of Achilles, in which two talents of 
gold were placed between two judges, as the reward of 
the best speaker, is generally cited to prove, that even in 
the earliest times, the judges were paid for their adminis- 
tration of justice, (c) 

" Plutarch mentions, that under the administration of 
Pericles, the Athenian magistrates were first authorized to 
require a remuneration from the suitors of their courts. 

best wine in his cellar; and turning round to the servant who had pre- 
sented them, " Tell your master," replied the inflexible magistrate, " that 
if he approves my wine, I beg he would not spare it." 

(a) Lloyd. 

(b) See the passage in note Z Z at the end. 

(c) Mr. Butler adds : " But an attentive reader will probably agree 
with Mr. Mitford in his construction of the passage, that the two talents 
were not the reward of the judge who should give the best opinion, but the 
subject of the dispute, and were to be adjudged to him who established his 
title to them by the best arguments." 



LORD KEEPER. CCV11 

In ancient Rome, the magistrates were wholly paid by the 
public ; but Justinian allowed some magistrates of an in- 
ferior description to receive presents, which he limited to 
a certain amount, from the suitors before them. 

" Montesquieu (b) observes, that ' in the early ages of 
the feudal law, when legal proceedings were short and 
simple, the lord defrayed the whole expense of the admi- 
nistration of justice in his court. In proportion as society 
became refined, a more complex administration of justice 
became necessary; and it was considered that not only 
the party who was cast, should, on account of his having 
instituted a bad cause, but that the successful party 
should, on account of the benefit which he had derived 
from the proceedings of the court, contribute, in some 
degree, to the expenses attending them; and that the 
public, on account of the general benefit which it derived 
from the administration of justice, should make up the 
deficiency.' 

"To secure to the judges the proportion which the 
suitors were to contribute towards the expense of justice, 
it was provided, by an ordonnance of St. Louis, that at 
the commencement of a suit, each party should deposit 
in court the amount of one tenth part of the property 
in dispute: that the tenth deposited by the unsuccessful 
party should be paid over to the judges on their pass- 
ing sentence; and that the tenth of the successful party 
should then be returned to him. This was varied by 
subsequent ordonnances. Insensibly it became a custom 
for the successful party to wait on the judges, after sen- 
tence was passed, and, as an acknowledgment of their 
attention to the cause, to present them with a box of 
sweetmeats, which was then called epices, or spices. By 

(6) Esprit des Loix, L. xxviii. ch. 35. 



CCV1U LIFE OF BACON. 

degrees, this custom became a legal perquisite of the 
judges; and it was converted into a present of money, and 
required by the judges before the cause came to hearing : 
Non deliberetur donee solventur species, say some of the 
ancient registers of the parliaments of France. That prac- 
tice was afterwards abolished; the amount of the epices 
was regulated; and, in many cases, the taking of them 
was absolutely forbidden. Speaking generally, they were 
not payable till final judgment; and if the matter were 
not heard in court, but referred to a judge for him to hear, 
and report to the court upon it, he was entitled to a pro- 
portion only of the epices, and the other judges were 
entitled to no part of them. Those among the magistrates 
who were most punctual and diligent in their attendance 
in court, and the discharge of their duty, had most causes 
referred to them, and were therefore richest in epices; but 
the superior amount of them, however it might prove their 
superior exertions, added little to their fortune, as it did 
not often exceed £50. and never £100. a year. The judges 
had some other perquisites, and also some remuneration 
from government; but the whole of the perquisites and 
remuneration of any judge, except those of the presidents, 
amounted to little more than the epices. The presidents 
of the parliament had a higher remuneration; but the 
price which they paid for their offices was proportionably 
higher, and the whole amount received by any judge for 
his epices, perquisites, and other remunerations, fell short 
of the interest of the money which he paid for the charge ; 
so that it is generally true, that the French judges admi- 
nistered justice not only without salary, but even with 
some pecuniary loss. Their real remuneration was the 
rank and consideration which their office gave them in 
society, and the respect and regard of their fellow citizens. 
How well does this illustrate Montesquieu's aphorism, 



PRESENTS TO BACON. CC1X 

that the principle of the French monarchy was honour ! 
It may be truly said, that the world has not produced a 
more learned, enlightened, or honourable order in society, 
than the French magistracy. 

" Englishmen are much scandalized, when they are in- 
formed that the French judges were personally solicited 
by the suitors in court, their families and protectors, and 
by any other person whom the suitors thought likely to 
influence the decision of the cause in their favour. But it 
all amounted to nothing : — to all these solicitations the 
judges listened with equal external reverence and internal 
indifference ; and they availed themselves of the first mo- 
ment when it could be done with decency, to bow the 
parties respectfully out of the room : it was a corvee on 
their time which they most bitterly lamented. " 

Bacon had scarcely been an hour appointed Lord Keeper 
when these presents of gold and of furniture, and of other 
costly articles, were showered upon him by various per- 
sons, and amongst others, by the suitors of the court, (a) 

Immediately after his appointment as Lord Keeper, he 
waited upon the late Lord Chancellor, to acquit himself of 
the debt of personal gratitude (h) which he owed to that 



(a) This appears from the answers to the charges which, at the time 
when " greatness was the mark, and accusation the game," were made 
against Bacon, 

The second article of the charge was : " In the same cause he received 
from Edward Egerton 400/." To which he answers : " I confess and 
declare, that soon after my first coming to the seal, being a time when I 
was presented by many, the 400/. mentioned in the said charge was deli- 
vered unto me in a purse, and, as I now call to mind, from Mr. Edward 
Egerton, but as far as I can recollect, it was expressed by them that brought 
it to be for favours past, and not in respect of favours to come." 

(6) Baconiana, p. 248.— In 14 Jac. he was constituted Lord Keeper of 
the Great Seal (7 Martii), being then fifty-four years of age. It is said in 
a libel (in which are many other notorious slanders), " that the Duke of 
VOL. XV. p 



CCX LIFE OF BACON. 

worthy person, and to acquaint him with his master's 
gracious intentions, to confer upon him the title of an earl, 
with a pension for life ; an honour which, as he died on the 



Buckingham, to vex the very soul of the Lord Chancellor Egerton, in his 
last agony, did send Sir Francis Bacon to him for the seals ; and likewise 
that the dying Chancellor did hate that Bacon should be his successor, and 
that his spirit not brooking this usage, he sent the seals by his servant to 
the King, and shortly after yielded his soul to his Maker." In which few 
words there are two palpable untruths. For first, the King himself sent 
for the seal, not the Duke of Buckingham ; and he sent for it, not by Sir 
Francis Bacon, but by Secretary Winwood, with this message, that himself 
would be his under-keeper, and not dispose of the place of Chancellor 
while he lived ; nor did any receive the seal out of the King's sight till the 
Lord Egerton died, which soon fell out. Next, the Lord Chancellor Eger- 
ton was willing that Master Attorney Bacon should be his successor, and 
ready to forward his succession; so far was he from conceiving hatred 
against him, either upon that or any other account. The Lord Egerton 
was his friend in the Queen's time ; and I find Mr. Bacon making his 
acknowledgments in a letter to him, in these words, which I once tran- 
scribed from the unpublished original : " For my placing, your lordship 
best knoweth, that when I was most dejected with her majesty's strange 
dealing towards me, it pleased you of your singular favour so far to comfort 
and encourage me, as to hold me worthy to be excited to think of succeed- 
ing your lordship in your second place ; signifying, in your plainness, that 
no man should better content yourself. Which your exceeding favour you 
have not since carried from ; both in pleading the like signification into the 
hands of some of my best friends, and also in an honourable and answerable 
commendation of me to her majesty. Wherein I hope your lordship (if it 
please you call to mind) did find me neither overweening, in presuming 
too much upon it, nor much deceived in my opinion of the event for the 
continuing of it still in yourself, nor sleepy in doing some good offices to 
the same purpose." This favour of the Lord Egerton's, which began so 
early, continued to the last. And thus much Sir Francis Bacon testified in 
a letter to Sir George Villiers, of which this is a part : " My Lord Chan- 
cellor told me yesterday, in plain terms, that if the King would ask his 
opinion touching the person that he would commend to succeed him, upon 
death or disability, he would name me for the fittest man. You may 
advise whether use may not be made of this offer." And the like appears 
by what Master Attorney wrote to King James during the sickness of my 
Lord Chancellor. Amongst other things, he wrote this to the King : " It 
pleased my Lord Chancellor, out of his ancient and great love to me, 



SCOTLAND. CCXl 

loth of the month, before the completion of the arrange- 
ments, was transferred to his son, who was created Earl of 
Bridgewater by the first patent to which the new Lord 
Keeper affixed the seal, (a) 

On the 14th of March the King quitted England, to Scotland, 
visit his native country; and Sir Francis had scarcely 
been a week raised to the office of Lord Keeper, when he 
was placed at the head of the council, and entrusted with 
the management of all public affairs. 

The King was accompanied by Buckingham, who, in his 
double capacity of Prime Minister and Master of the 
Revels, assisted with equal readiness at the discussions 
which were to direct the nation, and the pastimes con- 
trived to amuse the King. Graceful in all exercises and 
a fine dancer, Buckingham brought that diversion into 
great request, while his associates willingly lent themselves 
to the devices which his better taste disdained ; for James 
is said to have loved such representations and disguises as 
were witty and sudden, the more ridiculous the more 
pleasant, (b) 

which many times in sickness appeareth most, to admit me to a great deal 
of speech with him this afternoon, which, during these three days, he hath 
scarcely done to any." 

{a) See Life of Egerton, Biog. Brit. See Camden's Annals. 

(b) " Our King dedicated this summer to the northern climate ; it is now 
fourteen years revolution, since the beams of majesty appeared in Scotland. 
He begins his journey with the spring, warming the country as he went, 
with the glories of the court : taking such recreations by the way, as might 
best beguile the days, and cut them shorter, but lengthen the nights (con- 
trary to the seasons). For what with hawking, hunting, and horse-racing, 
the days quickly ran away; and the nights with feasting, masking, and 
dancing, were the more extended. And the King had fit instruments for 
these sports about his person, as Sir George Goring, Sir Edward Zouch, 
Sir John Finnit, and others, that could fit and obtemperate the King's 
humour; for he loved such representations and disguises in their maska- 
radoes as were witty and sudden, the more ridiculous the more pleasant. 



CCXii LIFE OF BACON. 

The policy of the favourite seems to be clear. He had 
endeavoured to prevent the King's visit ; and, in surround- 
ing his royal master with these buffooneries, he well knew 
that he should disgust the better part of the Scottish no- 
bility, and keep aloof all those grave and wise counsellors, 
who could not recognize, under the disguise of a masquer, 
the learned pupil of Buchanan, and the ruler of two 
kingdoms. 



" And his new favourite, being an excellent dancer, brought that pastime 
into the greater request. To speak of his advancement by degrees were to 
lessen the King's love ; for titles were heaped upon him, they came rather 
like showers than drops; for as soon as Somerset declined, he mounted. 
Such is the court motion ! Knighthood and gentleman of the bedchamber 
were the first sprinklings : and the then old Earl of Worcester (who had been 
long master of the horse to the late Queen, and continued it to this time) 
was made Lord Privy Seal, in exchange of his place, and a good sum of 
money put into the scale ; and Sir George Villers (Baron of Whaddon, 
Viscount Villers, and Earl of Buckingham, also of the privy council) is 
made Master of the Horse. In this glory he visits Scotland with the 
King, and is made a privy counsellor there. Favourites are not complete 
figures, if the prince's bounty be not circular, as well in his northerly 
motion as his southerly. He now reigns sole monarch in the King's affec- 
tion: every thing he doth is admired for the doer's sake. No man dances 
better, no man runs, or jumps better ; and indeed he jumped higher than 
ever Englishman did in so short a time, from a private gentleman to a 
dukedom. But the King is not well without him, his company is his 
solace, and the court grandees cannot be well but by him, so that all 
addresses are made to him, either for place or office in court or common- 
wealth. The bishops' sees did also ebb and flow, from the wane or fulness 
of his influence upon them ; and having a numerous kindred of the rank 
of gentry, which he planted about him, as a nursery in the court, to make 
them virescere, and spring up the better, the dew of these offices, and the 
fresh springs that came from those seas must be contributed. It cannot 
with modesty be expressed how greedily some of our prelates would clear 
all the passages of a bad conscience, to bring in such waters of comfort, 
lest it should bespatter the more worthy, and brand them all with simony, 
which dares not be done. But where God hath his church, the devil 
many times will have his chapel : it was ever his ambition to be like unto 
him." — Wilson, 



TAKES HIS SEAT IN CHANCERY. CCXlll 

Through the whole of this progress a constant communi- 
cation was maintained between Buckingham and the Lord 
Keeper, (a) 

On the 7th of May> being the first day of term, the Seat in 
Lord Keeper went in great state to Westminster, in the ancei T* 
following order : 

1. Clerks and inferior officers in Chancery, 

2. Students in law. 

3. Gentlemen servants to the Keeper, Serjeants at 

arms, and the seal-bearer, all on foot. 

4. Himself, on horseback, in a gown of purple satin, 

between the Treasurer and the Keeper of the 
Privy Seal. 

5. Earls, Barons, and Privy Councillors, 

6. Noblemen of all ranks. 

7. Judges, to whom the next place to the privy coun- 
cillors was assigned. 

In this pomp he entered the hall, (b) How different 
from the mode in which his successor took his seat ! (c) 

(a) Newark, 6th April, vol. xii. p. 315; Auckland, 18th April, vol. xii. 
p. 316; Newcastle, 23rd April, vol. xii. p. 317; Edinburgh, 3rd June, 
vol. xii. p. 318. 

(b) G. Camdeni Regni Jacobi I. Annalueni Apparatus, Anno 1617, 
Maii 7. — Primo die termini Franciscus Baconus Gustos Sigilli solenni 
Pompa processit ad Practorium West-monasteriense hoc ordine. 1. Scribae 
et inferiores officiarii in Cancellaria. 2. Studiosi juris. 3. Famuli gene- 
rosi Custodis servientes ad arma et sigillifer pedibus. 4. Ipse in equo toga 
ex purpura sattin inter Thesaurarium et Custodem Privati Sigilli. 5. Co- 
mites, barones, consiliarii privati. 6. Nobiles se interposuerunt. 7. Judices 
quibus locus assignatus erat proximus consiliariis privatis. 

(c) The following is the account by Bishop Hacket, of Archbishop Wil- 
liams, Lord Bacon's successor, taking his seat: "Upon the first day of 
term, when he was to take his place in court, he declined the attendance of 
his great friends, who offered, as the manner was, to bring him to his first 
sitting with the pomp of an inauguration. But he set out early in the 



CCX1V 



LIFE OF BACON. 



His 

address. 



Jurisdic- 
tion. 



Patents. 



Upon the Lord Keeper's entrance, he in the presence 
of so many honourable witnesses, (a) addressed the bar, 
stating the nature of the charge which had been given to 
him by the King, when he was entrusted with the great 
seal, and the modes by which, under the protection of 
God, it was his intention to obey what he was pleased to 
call his majesty's righteous commandments. 

With respect to the excess of jurisdiction, or tumour of 
the court, which was the first admonition, the Lord Keeper 
dilated upon all the causes of excess, and concluded with 
an assurance of his temperate use of authority, and his 
conviction that the health of a court as well as of a body 
consisted in temperance. 

With respect to the cautious sealing of patents, which 
was the second admonition, the Lord Keeper having stated 
six principal cases in which this caution was peculiarly 
requisite, and to which he declared that his attention 
should be directed, thus concluded : " And your lordships 



morning with the company of the judges and some few more, and passing 
through the cloisters into the abbey, he carried them with him into the 
chapel of Henry the Seventh, when he prayed on his knees (silently, but 
very devoutly, as might be seen by his gesture,) almost a quarter of an 
hour : then, rising up cheerfully, he was conducted, with no other train, to 
a mighty confluence that expected him in the hall, whom, from the court of 
Chancery, he greeted with this speech," &c. — See note BBBB at the end. 
In Walton's Life of Herbert, he says, " Herbert was presented by Dr. 
Davenant, Bishop of Salisbury, to the living of Bemerton in his thirty-sixth 
year. When at his induction, he was shut into Bemerton church, being 
left there alone to toll the bell (as the law requires him) he staid so much 
longer than an ordinary time, before he returned to those friends that staid 
expecting him at the church door, that his friend Mr. Woodnot looked in 
at the church window, and saw him lie prostrate on the ground before the 
altar ; at which time and place (as he after told Mr. Woodnot) he set 
some rules to himself for the future manage of his life, and then and there 
made a vow to labour to keep them." 

(«) Ante, p. cxc. For the speech, see vol. vii. p. 241. 



SPEECH AS LORD KEEPER. CCXV 

see in this matter of the seal, and his majesty's royal com- 
mandment concerning the same, I mean to walk in the 
light, so that men may know where to find me ; and this 
publishing thereof plainly, I hope will save the King from 
a great deal of abuse, and me from a great deal of envy; 
when men shall see that no particular turn or end leads 
me, but a general rule. 

With respect to speedy justice, which was the third Delay. 
admonition, and upon which, in his essays on " Delay and 
Dispatch," (a) it appears that he had maturely deliberated, 
he explained the nature of true and affected dispatch ; and, 
having divided delays, into the delays of the judge and of 
the suitor, he said, " For myself, I am resolved that my 
decree shall come speedily, if not instantly after the hear- 
ing, and my signed decree speedily upon my decree pro- 
nounced. For fresh justice is the sweetest; and to the 
end that there be no delay of justice, nor any other means- 
making or labouring, but the labouring of the counsel at 
the bar. 

" Again, because justice is a sacred thing, and the end 
for which I am called to this place, and therefore is my 
way to heaven ; and if it be shorter, it is never a whit the 
worse, I shall, by the grace of God, as far as God will give 
me strength, add the afternoon to the forenoon, and some 
fourth night of the vacation to the term, for the expediting 
and clearing of the causes of the court ; only the depth of 
the three long vacations I would reserve in some measure 
free from business of estate and for studies, arts, and 
sciences, to which in my own nature I am most inclined. 

" There is another point of true expedition, which resteth 
much in myself, and that is in my manner of giving 
orders. For I have seen an affectation of dispatch turn 

0) Vol. i. pp. 73 and 83. 



ccxvi Life of bacon, 

utterly to delay at length : for the manner of it is to take 
the tale out of the counsellor at the bar his mouth, and to 
give a cursory order, nothing tending or conducing to the 
end of the business. It makes me remember what I heard 
one say of a judge that sat in Chancery; that he would 
make forty orders in a morning out of the way, and it was 
out of the way indeed ; for it was nothing to the end of 
the business : and this is that which makes sixty, eighty, 
an hundred orders in a cause, to and fro, begetting one 
another; and, like Penelope's web, doing and undoing* 
But I mean not to purchase the praise of expeditive in 
that kind ; but as one that have a feeling of my duty* and 
of the case of others. My endeavour shall be to hear 
patiently, and to cast my order into such a mould as may 
soonest bring the subject to the end of his journey." 

And as to the delays of the suitor, he thus concluded i 
" By the grace of God, I will make injunctions but a hard 
pillow to sleepers; for if I find that he prosecutes not with 
effect, he may, perhaps, when he is awake, find not only 
his injunction dissolved, but his cause dismissed." 
Expense. With respect to the last admonition, that justice should 
not be obstructed by unnecessary expense, he expressed 
his determination to diminish all expense, saying in sub- 
stance what he had said in his essay on Judicature : (a) 
" The place of justice is an hallowed place, and therefore not 
only the bench, but the foot-pace, and precincts and pur- 
prise thereof ought to be preserved without scandal and 
corruption ; for, certainly * grapes (as the scripture saith) 
will not be gathered of thorns or thistles;' neither can 
justice yield her fruit with sweetness amongst the briars 
and brambles of catching and polling clerks and minis- 
ters; which justifies the common resemblance of the 

(a) Vol. i. p. 179. 



SPEECH AS LORD KEEPER. CCXV11 

courts of justice to the bush, whereunto, while the sheep 
flies for defence in weather, he is sure to lose part of his 
fleece." 

He concludes his address with some observations upon 
projected improvements in the practice of the court, and 
his intention to frame ordinances for its better regulation. 
" My lords," he added, " I have no more to say, but now 
I will go on to business." 

Upon his retirement from the court he communicated to 
Buckingham, then at Edinburgh, an account of the day's 
proceedings, in a letter, saying, " Yesterday I took my place 
in Chancery, which I hold only from the King's grace and 
favour, and your constant friendship. There was much 
ado, and a great deal of world. But this matter of pomp, 
which is heaven to some men, is hell to me, or purgatory 
at least. It is true I was glad to see that the King's choice 
was so generally approved, and that I had so much inte- 
rest in men's good wills and good opinions, because it 
maketh me the fitter instrument to do my master service, 
and my friend also. 

" After I was set in Chancery, I published his majesty's 
charge, which he gave me when he gave me the seal, and 
what rules and resolutions I had taken for the fulfilling 
his commandments. I send your lordship a copy of that 
I said, (a) Men tell me, it hath done the King a great 
deal of honour; insomuch that some of my friends that 
are wise men and no vain ones, did not stick to say to me, 
that there was not these seven years such a preparation for 
a parliament; which was a commendation, I confess, 
pleased me well. I pray take some fit time to shew it his 
majesty, because, if I misunderstood him in any thing, I 



(a) Stephens, p. 202. See vol. xii. p. 244 ; and, for the speech, vol. vii. 
p. 241. 



CCXVlll LIFE OF BACON. 

may amend it, because I know his judgment is higher and 
deeper than mine." 

The approbation of the King was immediately communi- 
cated by Buckingham, (a) 
Spanish Before the King's departure for Scotland he had ap- 

pointed commissioners for managing the treaty of marriage 
between the Prince his son, and the Infanta of Spain. 
The Lord Keeper, who had too much wisdom not to per- 
ceive the misfortunes which would result from this union, 
prudently and honestly advised the King not to proceed 
with the treaty, (b) stating the difficulties which had 
already occurred from a disunited council ; but the King 
fell into the snare which the politic Gondomar had pre- 
pared for him, and persisted to negociate an alliance, in 
opposition to his own interests, the advice of his ablest 
councillors, and the universal voice of his people. A more 
unequal game could not be played, than between the 
childish cunning of this blundering, obstinate, good- 
humoured king, and the diplomacy of the smooth, intel- 
lectual, determined Gondomar, graceful, supple, and fatal 
as a serpent. 

Bacon, who was fully aware of the envy which pursued 
his advancement, was careful to transmit an exact account 
of his proceedings, and, in dispatches which appeared only 
to contain a narrative of passing events, conveyed to the 
King and his favourite many sound maxims of state 
policy. His royal master, who was not insensible of his 
services, greatly commended him, and Buckingham ex- 
pressed his own admiration of the wisdom and prudence 
of his counsels. 

This sunshine was, however, soon after clouded by a 
circumstance, which is worth noting only as it shows 

(a) Vol. xiii. p. 10. 

(6) Letter of 19th April, 1617, vol. xii. p. 243. 



MARRIAGE OF VILLIERS. CCX1X 

the temper of the times, and the miserable subjection 
in which the favourite held all persons, however eminent 
in talent or station. Sir Edward Coke, who had been 
disgraced the year before, unable to bear retirement, 
aggravated as it was, by the success of his rival, ap- 
plied, during the King's absence, to Secretary Winwood, 
submissively desiring to be restored to favour; and he, 
who, in support of the law, had resisted the King to his 
face, and had rejected with scorn the proposal of an 
alliance with the family of Buckingham, now offered " to Marriage 
do any thing that was required of him," and to promote, ° 1 iers ' 
upon their own terms, the marriage of his daughter with 
Sir John Villiers. Winwood, who, for party purposes, was 
supposed to enter officiously into this business, readily 
undertook the negociation. It was not attended with 
much difficulty: the young lady, beautiful and opulent, 
was instantly accepted. 

Bacon, for many cogent reasons, which he fairly ex- 
pressed both to the King (a) and to Buckingham, strongly 
opposed this match, displeasing to the political friends of 
Buckingham, and fraught with bitterness from the oppo- 
sition of Lady Hatton, the young lady's mother, upon 
whom her fortune mainly depended. Bacon's dislike to 
Coke, and the possible consequences to himself from this 
alliance, were supposed by Buckingham to have influ- 
enced this unwise interference; which he resented, first 
by a cold silence, and afterwards by several haughty 
and bitter letters : and, so effectually excited the King's 
displeasure, that, on his return, he sharply reprimanded 
in the privy council those persons who had interfered in 
this business. Buckingham, who could shew his power, 
as well in allaying as in raising a storm, was soon 
ashamed of the King's violence, and seeing the ridicule 

(a) See the letters, vol. xii. p. 324-7. 



CCXX LIFE OF BACON. 

that must arise from his inflating a family quarrel into a 
national grievance, interceded " on his knees "(a) for 
Bacon. A reconciliation, of course, took place, but not 
without disgrace to all the parties concerned; exhibiting 
on the one part unbecoming violence, and on the other the 
most abject servility. The marriage, which had occa- 
sioned so much strife, was solemnized at the close of the 
month of September ; and Sir Edward Coke was recalled 
to the council table, where, after the death of Winwood, 
he did not long keep his seat. 
Finance. This storm having subsided, the Lord Keeper turned his 
attention to the subject of finance, and endeavoured to 
bring the government expenses, now called the Civil list, 
within the compass of the ordinary revenue; a measure 
more necessary, since there had never been any disposition 
in parliament to be as liberal to James as to his illustrious 
predecessor. 

The difficulties which the council met in the projected 
retrenchments from the officers of state whose interests were 
affected, confirmed the remark of Cardinal Richlieu, " that 
the reformation of a king's household is a thing more fit 
to be done than successfully attempted." This did not dis- 
courage the Lord Keeper, who went manfully to the work, 
and wrote freely to Buckingham and to the King himself, 
upon the necessity both of striking at the root, and lopping 
off the branches ; of considering whether Ireland, (b) instead 
of being a burthen to England, ought not, in a great 
measure, to support itself; and of diminishing household 
expenses, and abridging pensions and gratuities, (c) 



(a) See letter, vol. xii. p. 342. (b) See vol. xii. p. 267. 

(c) To the King. 
May it please your Majesty, — Being yesterday assembled in council to 
proceed in the cour.se we had begun for retrenchment of your majesty's 



CIVIL LIST. CCXXl 

Notwithstanding these efforts to retrench all unnecessary 
expenditure in the household, the pecuniary distresses of 
the King were so great, that expedients, from which he 
ought to have been protected by the Commons, were 
adopted, and the grant of patents and infliction of fines 
was made a profitable source of revenue : although Bacon 
had, upon the death of Salisbury, earnestly prayed the 
King " not to descend to any means, or degree of means, 



expenses, we thought it appurtenant to our duties to inform your majesty 
how far we have proceeded in the several heads of retrenchments by your 
majesty at your departure committed unto us, that when you know in 
what estate our labours are, your judgment may the better direct any fur- 
ther course, as shall be meet. 

The matter of the household was by us, some days since, committed 
peremptorily to the officers of the house, as matter of commandment from 
your majesty, and of duty in them, to reduce the expense of your house to 
a limited charge of fifty thousand pounds by the year, besides the benefit 
of the compositions; and they have ever since painfully, as we are in- 
formed, travailed in it, and will be ready on Sunday next, which was the 
day given them, to present some models of retrenchments of divers kinds, 
all aiming at your majesty's service. 

In the point of pensions we have made a beginning, by suspending some 
wholly for a time, and of others of a third part; in which course we are 
still going on, until we make it fit to be presented to your majesty ; in like 
manner, the Lord Chamberlain and the Lord Hay did yesterday report 
unto us what their travail had ordered in the wardrobe ; and although some 
doubt did arise unto us, whether your majesty's letters intended a stay of 
our labours, until you had made choice of the sub-committee intended by 
you, yet, presuming that such a course by sub-committee was purposed 
rather for a furtherance than let to that work, we did resolve to go on still, 
till your majesty's further directions shall come unto us; and then, according 
to our duty, we will proceed as we shall be by your majesty commanded ; 
in the mean time, we thought it our duty to inform your majesty of what 
we have done, that neither your majesty may conceive that we have been 
negligent in those things which were committed unto us, nor your direc- 
tions by your late letters hinder or cast back that which is already so far 
proceeded in. And so humbly kissing your royal hands, and praying to 
the Almighty for your long and happy reign over us, we rest, &c. 

Dec. 5, 1617.— See vol. xiii. p. 12. 



CCXXll LIFE OF BACON. 

which cometh not of a symmetry with his majesty and 
greatness, (a) 

While these exactions disclosed to the people the King's 
poverty, they could daily observe his profuse expenditure 
and lavish bounty to his favourite; recourse, therefore, 
was had to Buckingham by all suitors; but neither the 
distresses of the King, nor the power of the favourite 
deterred the Lord Keeper from staying grants and patents, 
when his public duty demanded this interposition: an 
interference which, if Buckingham really resented, he con- 
cealed his displeasure ; as, so far from expressing himself 
with his usual haughtiness, he thanked his friend, telling 
him that he " desired nothing should pass the seal except 
what was just or convenient." (b) 
Lord On the 4th of January, 1618, the Lord Keeper was 

S a and" created Lord Hi g h Chancellor of England, and in July 
Verulam. Baron of Verulam, to which, as stated in the preamble to 
the patent of nobility, witnessed by the Prince of Wales, 
Duke of Lenox, and many of the first nobility, the King 
was " moved by the grateful sense he had of the many 
faithful services rendered him by this worthy person." In 
the beginning of the same year the Earl of Buckingham 
was raised to the degree of Marquis. 
Dulwich. I n August, 1618, the Lord Keeper, with a due sense 
of the laudable intentions of the founder, stayed a patent 
for the foundation of Dulwich College, from the conviction 
that education was the best charity, and would be best 



(a) See ante, p. clviii, note. 

(b) " My honourable Lord, — I have received your lordship's letters, 
wherein I see the continuance of your love and respect to me, in any thing 
I write to you of, for which I give your lordship many thanks, desiring 
nothing for any man but what you shall find just and convenient to pass. 

" Your Lordship's faithful servant, G. Buckingham." 
Vol. xiii. p. 13. 



CIVIL LIST. CCXX111 

promoted by the foundation of lectures in the university. 
This his favourite opinion, which he, when Solicitor Gene- 
ral, had expressed in his tract upon Sutton's Hospital, (a) 
and renewed in his will, (b) was immediately communi- 
cated to Buckingham, (c) to whom he suggested that part 
of the founder's bounty ought to be appropriated to the 
advancement of learning. 

Firm, however, as Bacon was with respect to patents, 
his wishes, as a politician, to relieve the distresses of the 
King, seem to have had some tendency to influence his 
mind as a judge. In one of his letters he expresses his 
anxiety to accelerate the prosecution, saying, " it might, if 
wind and weather permit, come to hearing in the term;" 
and in another he says, " the evidence went well, and I 
will not say I sometimes helped it as far as was fit for 
a judge. "(J) 

(a) Ante, p. cliii. (b) Ante, p. xiii. 

(c) See note XOY at the end. See vol. xii. p. 259. 

(d) The following are the letters, which must speak for themselves : 

To the Marquis of Buckingham. 

My very good Lord, — These things which I write now and heretofore 
in this cause, I do not write so as any can take knowledge that I write, 
but I dispatch things ex officio here, and yet think it fit inwardly to adver- 
tise the King what doth occur. And I do assure your lordship, that if I 
did serve any king whom I did not think far away wiser than myself, I 
would not write in the midst of business, but go on of myself. 

This morning, notwithstanding my speech yesterday with the duke, he 
delivered this letter inclosed, and I having cleared the room of all save the 
court and learned counsel (whom I required to stay), the letter was read a 
little before our hour of sitting. When it was read, Mr. Attorney began to 
move that my lord should not acknowledge his offences as he conceived he 
had committed them, but as they were charged; and some of the lords 
speaking to that point, I thought fit to interrupt and divert that kind of 
question ; and said, before we considered of the extent of my lord's sub- 
mission we were first to consider of the extent of our own duty and power ; 
for that I conceived it was neither fit for us to stay proceeding, nor to 
move his majesty in that which was before us in course of justice; unto 



CCXX1V LIFE OF BACON. 

So true is it, as Bacon himself had taught, that a judge 
ought to be of a retired nature, and unconnected with 

which (being once propounded by me) all the lords and the rest una voce 
assented, I would not so much as ask the question whether, though we 
proceeded, I should send the letter to his majesty, because I would not 
straiten his majesty in any thing. 

The evidence went well (I will not say I sometimes helped it as far as 
was fit for a judge), and at the arising of the court I moved the lords 
openly, whether they would not continue this cause from day to day till it 
were ended, which they thought not fit in regard of the general justice, 
which would be delayed in all courts : yet afterwards within I prevailed so 
far, as we have appointed to sit Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, and to 
sit by eight of the clock, and so to dispatch it before the King come, if we 
can. God preserve and prosper you. 1 ever rest your Lordship's most 
obliged friend and faithful servant, Fr. Verulam, Cane, 

This 22nd of October, Friday, 
at 4 of the clock, 1619. 

To the Marquis of Buckingham. 

My very good Lord, — I think fit to let your lordship understand what 
passed yesterday in the Star-chamber touching Suffolk's business. 

There came to me the clerk of the court in the inner chamber, and told 
me that my Lord of Suffolk desired to be heard by his council at the * 
sitting of the court, because it was pen * * * him. 

I marvelled I heard not of it by Mr. Attorney, who should have let me 
know as much, that I might not be taken on the sudden in a cause of that 
weight. I called presently Mr. Attorney to me, and asked him whether he 
knew of the motion, and what it was, and how he was provided to answer 
it. He signified to me, that my lord would desire to have the commission 
for examinations in Ireland to be returnable in Michaelmas term. I said 
it might not be, and presently drew the council then present to me, and 
made Mr. Attorney repeat to them the passages past, and settled it, that 
the commission should be returnable the first day of the next term, and 
then republication granted, that it might, if accidents of wind and weather 
permit, come to hearing in the term. And upon motion in open court it 
was ordered accordingly. 

God ever preserve and prosper you. I pray God this great easterly 
wind agree well with his majesty. Your Lordship's most obliged friend 
and faithful servant, Fr. Verulam, Cane. 

May 6, 1619. 

See also letter, October 14, 1619, vol. xiii. p. 19. 



DUTCH MERCHANTS. CCXXV 

politics. So certain is the injury to the administration of 
justice, from the attempt to blend the irreconcileable 
characters of judge and politician; the judge unbending 
as the oak, the politician pliant as the osier : (a) the 
judge firm and constant, the same to all men; the 
politician, ever varying, 

" Orpheus in sylvis, inter delphinas Arion :" 

It was, about this time, discovered that several Dutch 
merchants of great opulence had exported gold and silver 
to the amount of some millions, (b) There are various 
letters extant upon this subject, exhibiting the King's 
pecuniary distresses, his rash facility in making promises, 
and the discontent felt by the people at his improvidence, 
and partiality for his own countrymen. 



(a) See Advancement of Learning, vol. ii. p. 33, for instances of this sort 
of compliance. 

(b) " My very good Lord, — The discovery I think very happy : for 
if it be true, it will be a great benefit to his majesty ; it will also content 
his people much, and it will demonstrate also that Scotland is not the 
leech (as some discoursers say) but the Netherlanders that suck the 
realm of treasure: so that the thing is very good. But two things I 
must represent to his majesty : the first, that if I stay merchants from 
their trading by this writ, I must do it either ex officio, or by special 
warrant from his majesty. If ex officio, then I must have more than 
a bare surmise to grant the writ upon, so as I must be acquainted with 
the grounds, or at least appearance of proofs. If by special warrant, then 
I desire to receive the same. The other is, that I humbly beseech his 
majesty that these royal boughs of forfeiture may not be vintaged, or 
cropped by private suitors (considering his majesty's state as it is), but 
that Sir Thomas Vavasor or Sir John Britten may have a bountiful and 
gracious reward of their discovery, but not the prime, or without stint. 
In sum, I would wish his majesty to refer the whole business and carriage 
of the same for his honour and profit to the commissioners of treasure, or 
because it is a legal forfeiture to myself, Mr. Chancellor, Sir Edward Coke, 
and my Lord Chief Justice of England, and by us his majesty shall be 

VOL. XV. q 



CCXXV1 LIFE OF BACON. 

Though evidently rejoicing at this windfall for his royal 
master, (a) Bacon, regardless of the importunities of the 
Attorney General, refused to issue writs of ne exeat against 
the merchants till he had obtained evidence to warrant 
his interposition, and cautioned his majesty against grant- 
ing the forfeitures accruing from this discovery. (b) He 
entreated that a commission might be formed, empowering 
Sir E. Coke, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Lord 
Chief Justice, and himself, to investigate this matter. 
These observations were well received, and immediately 
adopted by the King; and, although informations were 
filed against a hundred and eighty, only twenty of the 
principal merchants were tried and convicted. They were 
fined to the amount of £100,000, which, by the inter- 
cession of Buckingham, was afterwards remitted to about 
£30,000. (c) The rest of the prosecutions were stayed at 
his instance, intercession having been made to him by 
letters from the States General, and probably by the mer- 
chants themselves in the way in which he was usually 
approached by applicants. 

While this cause was pending, the Earl of Suffolk, 
Lord Treasurer, was prosecuted, with his lady, in the Star 
Chamber, for trafficking with the public money to the 
amount of £50,000 ; and they were sentenced to imprison- 
ment and fine, not, according to the judgment of Sir 
Edward Coke, of £100,000, but of £30,000. Bacon com- 
mended Coke to the King, as having done his part 



assured to know the best course for his justice, honour, and profit, and 
that he may dispose what bounty he will. 
See also vol. xii. pp. 263, 265, 374. 

(a) See letter of October 14, 1619, vol. xiii. p. 19. 
(6) See note (a), ante, p. ccxxiv. 
(c) Stephens, p. xlvii. 



LORD SUFFOLK. CCXXVli 

excellently, (a) but pursued his own constant course, activity 
in detecting the offence, and moderation in punishing the 
offender. After a short confinement they were released 
at the intercession of Buckingham, and the fine reduced 
to £7000. 

The motives by which Buckingham was influenced in 
this and similar remissions may possibly be collected from 
his conduct in the advancement of Lord Chief Justice 
Montagu, who, for a sum of £20,000, was appointed to 
the Treasurership, vacated by the removal of Lord Suffolk, 
and was created a peer; for which offence this dispenser 
of the King's favours was, in the reign of Charles the First, 
impeached by the Commons, but he, after the death of 
Bacon and of the King, solemnly denied the accusation, by 
protesting " that the sum was a voluntary loan to the King 
by the Lord Treasurer after his promotion, and not an 
advance to obtain the appointment." (b) 

(a) See letter of 13th November, 1619, vol. xii. p. 77. 

(b) Let the letters upon this transaction, of which the originals are in 
the Tanners MSS. in Oxford, speak for themselves : they have not hitherto 
been printed. 

« My good Lord, — If rumour carry me into error, yet I beseech you 
lett secresy cover my error, non living knowes what I write, nor I hope 
shall, yf that I write shall not please you. What ground it hath I know 
not, nor whence the opinion ryseth, but bothe in court and abroade it is 
strongly conceyted, talked, and told me, as yf the King hadde purpose to 
make me L. Treasorer. Your lordship best knowes the King's purposes. 
Yf my service should be thought of use to make him a ritche king, as in 
all things els he is a happy king, I would be content to sacrifice my lyfe, 
my labour, and all my fortunes to do him that office. And for my obliga- 
tion to you I would leave the earnest of ten thousand pounds, to bestow 
where and when you shall appoint. 

" This proceedes not of baseness to buy that which otherwise I were not 
worthy of, nor of pryde to be made better then I am, but sincerely to shew 
how mutch I zeale my master's good ; and God assistinge, I would not 
feare to effect what it seemes the world thinks I could and might performe. 
My second ends ar to shew how mutch and how truly I am yours, and 
would be while I live. 



CCXXVlll LIFE OF BACON. 

Such were the occupations to which this philosopher 
was doomed ; occupations which, even as Chancellor, he 



" Yf all this be but the vapour of sum men's fancys yt will quickly 
spend itself, yf it be a thing worth your thought I am at your dispose. 

" To-morrow morninge I am commanded to attend the King about 
matters of his revenue. In the mean time and so always I shall rest 

" Your Lordship's obliged servant, H. Mountagu. 
" 3. Jan. 1618. 
" To the right honorable and my most honored 
lord, the Marquess of Buckingham, these." 

Tanners MSS. Oxford, 74, f. 233. 

" My honored Lord, — 1 have ever observed that those whoe with inge- 
nuity and industry have acquired a fortune sildome part with it, but upon 
stricte conditions. Yet soe happy doth my Lord Cheefe Justice thinke 
himself in the promised assurance of your love, and such is his confidence 
of the King's favor, having your lordship to frend, as that it drawes him to 
cast his fortunes at his majestie's feete, and to bee disposed of by your 
lordship, being confident that you will waye and measure him by that 
which may stand well with his estate : if his majestie will require of him 
twenty thousand ould peeces he yeelds to it, and desires not to be pressed 
further. Of this wound he hopes he may in time, with your favor recover, 
therfore is well content to languish of this disease a while, in obedience (as 
he himselfe cals it) to his royall master his will. 

" He is willing to pay this sum hee offers by ten thousand peeces at a 
time, the first payment to be made presently, and the laste when his 
majestie takes his jurnye, contenting himselfe with the honor of a Viscount 
untill the King shall thinke fit to confer more honor upon him. 

" The terme ends on Tuesday come sevennight. The Treasorer is to be 
sworne in the Chancery and in the Exchequer courts ; therfore it will be 
requisite if your lordship make good your promise for his having the place 
before Christmas, that my Lord Cheefe Justice be sent for presently to 
come to the King. For the office requires no other ceremony but delyvery 
of the staffe by the King's hand ; and direction would be sent for drawing 
his patent of honor, and that other concerning his office, and the resolution 
and direction would be expedited. If this satisfy not his majestie, his 
resolution to cast himselfe at his majestie's feete, and bee directed by your 
lordship, wil give the King and your lordship advantage to dispose of 
him; ffor I find him more inclining to his Majestie's pleasure then his 
owne ends. 



POLITICS. CCXX1X 

regretted, saying, most truly, " I know these things do not 
pertain to me; for my part is to acquit the King's office 

" Thus hoping I have given your lordship a good account of what you 
gave me in charge, I kiss your hands, and rest 

" Your Lordship's servant, and affectionate brother, Ed. Villiers. 
" November the 17th, 1620. 
" To the Right Honorable my very good lord and 
brother, the Marquess of Buckingham, these." 

Tanners MSS. No. 290, f. 31. 

" Sir Edward, — I have written a short letter to my lorde, for that I 
holde necessary for me to do. And I have named twenty thousand 
poundes to him. Wherfore I praye yow putt out the worde peeces in your 
letter, and put it downe poundes, for I am resolved not to exceede it. 
The payment shall be at my lord's appointment ; but for divers reasons, I 
thought both before and senc that I spake with you, I had rather com of 
ffaire then com higher then twenty thousand poundes, though it may be 
thought little, the greater som consider'd. 

" For the Kinge's speedy sendinge for me before the tearme end, I have 
senc thought of yt, and findinge it not to be of necessity duringe the 
tearme, and that conveniently I canot go downe, and some tearme busi- 
nesses require dispatch at my handes, therfor I think best that be lefte out 
of the letter, and mention only to be made of givinge order for the two 
patents I spake of, yf the Kinge be pleased with it. Thus with my true 
love remembred, I rest your assured, H. Mountagu. 

" I have sent you my letter unsealed, that you may see yt, and then 
seale it upp." 

This letter is without direction, but on the back is written in Sir Edward 
Villiers' hand : 

" This note I received from my Lord Cheefe Justice since I wrote my 
letter according to his owne direction." 

Tanners MSS. No. 114, f. 186. 

" My most honored Lord, — Such is the value of that worde where you 
please to say you joyne handes with me in the point of contract, that it 
overswaies in me all other thoughts that otherwise have reflection uppon 
me. This respect and those perswasions of Sir Ed. Villiers have made me 
yealding to twenty thousand poundes : my estate, God be thanked, is worth 
that and twenty thousand more, yet hadd I rather yealde yt all then to 
refuse the King in any thinge he pleaseth to demaund, or think me fitt for, 



CCXXX LIFE OF BACON. 

towards God, in the maintenance of the prerogative, and 

and senc your nobleness hath pleased to price my true, sincere, and con- 
stant affection at such a rate as I perceive you have done, holde me the 
unworthiest that ever was yf I bee ever wantinge, false, or fainte, in that I 
have professed. It overjoyes me to finde that the merrit and memory of 
my brother Winchester still lives with your lordship, but not to troble you 
with many wordes or more professions, 

" I rest assuredly at your honor's command, H. Mountagu. 

" 18 Nov. 1620. 
" To the right honorable my singular good Lord, 
the Lord Marques Buckingham, Lord High 
Admirall of England." 

On the 3rd of Dec. 1620, Lord Chief Justice Montagu was appointed 
Lord Treasurer* In June, 1626, after the death of Bacon and of King 
James, Buckingham was impeached by the Commons upon many charges, 
of which the tenth was, " Whereas no places of judicature in the courts of 
justice of our sovereign lord the King, nor other like preferments given by 
the kings of this realm ought to be procured by any subjects whatsoever 
for any reward, bribe, or gifts ; he the said duke in or about the month of 
December, in the eighteenth year of the reign of the late King James of 
famous memory, did procure of the said king the office of High Treasurer 
of England to the Lord Viscount M. now Earl of M.; which office, at 
his procurement, was given and granted accordingly to the Lord Viscount 
M. And as a reward for the said procurement of the said grant, he 
the said duke -did then receive to his own use of and from the said Lord 
Viscount M. the sum of £20,000 of lawful money of England." — Rush- 
worth, i. 334. See Cobbett's Parliamentary History, i. 115. 

To this charge the duke answered, "That he received not, or had a 
penny of either of those sums to his own use ; but the truth is, the Lord 
M. was made Lord Treasurer by his late majesty without contracting for 
any thing for it ; and after that he had the office conferred upon him, his 
late majesty moved him to lend him twenty thousand pounds, upon 
promise of repayment at the end of a year; the Lord M. yielded it, so as 
he might have the duke's word that it should be repaid to him accordingly. 
The duke gave his word for it, the Lord M. relied upon it, and delivered 
the said sum to the hands of Mr. Porter, then attending upon the duke, 
by the late king's appointment, to be disposed of as his majesty should 
direct. And according to the King's direction, that very money was fully 

= * Dugdale's Baronage, ii. 280. 



JUDICIAL EXERTIONS. CCXXX1 

to oblige the hearts of the people to him by the adminis- 
tration of justice." (a) 

From these political expedients he turned to his more Judicial 
interesting judicial duties. How strenuously he exerted 
himself in the discharge of them may be seen in his 
honest exultation to Buckingham, and may be easily con- 
ceived by those who know how indefatigable genius is in 



paid out to others, and the duke neither had nor disposed of a penny 
thereof to his own use, as is suggested against him. And afterwards, when 
the Lord M. left that place, and his money was not repaid unto him, he 
urged the duke upon his promise; whereupon the duke being jealous of 
his honour, and to keep his word, not having money to repay him, he assured 
lands of his own to the Lord M. for his security. But when the duke 
was in Spain, the Lord M. obtained a promise from his late majesty of 
some lands in fee farm, to such a value as he accepted of the same in satis- 
faction of the said money, which were afterward passed unto him ; and at 
the duke's return the Lord M. delivered back unto him the security of the 
duke's lands, which had been given unto him as aforesaid." 

Rushworth, i. 387. See Cobbett. 

(a) See his letter to the Earl of Buckingham, of November 19, 1617, 
vol. xii. p. 252. " My very good Lord, — The liking which his majesty hath 
of our proceeding, concerning his household, telleth me that his majesty 
cannot but dislike the declining and tergiversation of the inferior officers, 
which by this time he understandeth. There be but four kinds of retrench- 
ments : 1. The union of tables. 2. The putting down of tables. 3. The 
abatement of dishes to tables. 4. The cutting off new diets and allowance 
lately raised : and yet perhaps such as are more necessary than some of 
the old. In my opinion the first is the best and most feasible. The Lord 
Chamberlain's table is the principal table of state. The Lord Steward's 
table I think is much frequented by Scottish gentlemen. Your lordship's 
table hath a great attendance ; and the groom of the stole's table is much 
resorted to by the bedchamber. These would not be touched ; but for the 
rest (his majesty's case considered) I think they may well be united into 
one. These things are out of my element, but my care runneth where the 
King's state most laboureth : Sir Lionel Cranfield is yet sick, for which I 
am very sorry ; for methinks his majesty upon these tossings over of his 
business from one to others hath an apt occasion to go on with subcom- 
mittees. God ever preserve and prosper you. Your Lordship's true friend 
and devoted servant." 



CCXXX11 LIFE OF BACON. 

any business in which it is interested : (a) how ardent and 
strenuous it is in encountering and subduing all difficulties 
to which it is opposed. (a) 

In a letter to Buckingham of the 8th of June, 1617, he 
says, (b) " This day I have made even with the business of 
the kingdom for common justice; not one cause unheard; 
the lawyers drawn dry of all the motions they were to 
make; not one petition unanswered. And this, I think, 
could not be said in our age before. This I speak, not out 
of ostentation, but out of gladness, when I have done my 
duty. I know men think I cannot continue if I should 
thus oppress myself with business: but that account is 
made. The duties of life are more than life ; and if I die 
now, I shall die before the world be weary of me, which in 
our times is somewhat rare." And in two other letters he, 
from the same cause, expresses the same joy. (c) 

These exertions did not secure him from the interference 
of Buckingham, or protect him, as they have never pro- 
tected any judge, from misrepresentation and calumny; 
but, unmoved by friendship or by slander, he went right 
onward in his course. He acted as he taught, from the 



(g) See vol. ii. p. 21, Advancement of Learning. 

(b) See vol. xii. p. 348. 

(c) In a letter of Dec. 6, 1617, vol. xii. p. 339, he says, " Your lordship 
may marvel, that together with the letter from the board, which you see 
passed so well, there came no particular letter from myself; wherein, 
though it be true, that now this very evening I have made even with the 
causes of Chancery, and comparing with the causes heard by my lord, that 
dead is, of Michaelmas term was twelvemonth, I find them to be double so 
many and one more; besides that the causes that I dispatch do seldom 
turn upon me again, as his many times did." — And in a letter of May 17, 
1619, vol. xiii. p. 17, he says, " I send now to know how his majesty doth 
after his remove, and to give you account that yesterday was a day of 
motions in the Chancery. This day was a day of motions in the Star 
Chamber, and it was my hap to clear the bar, that no man was left to 
move any thing, which my lords were pleased to note they never saw 
before." 



BUCKINGHAM S INTERFERENCE. CCXXX111 

conviction that "a popular judge is a deformed thing: 
and plaudits are fitter for players than magistrates. Do 
good to the people, love them, and give them justice, but 
let it be ' nihil inde expectantes :' looking for nothing, 
neither praise nor profit." (a) 

Notwithstanding Bacon's warning to Buckingham, that Bucking- 
he ought not, as a statesman, to interfere, either by word JJS^I 
or letter, in any cause depending, or like to be depending 
in any court of justice, (b) the temptations to Buckingham 
were, it seems, too powerful to induce him to attend to this 
admonition, in resistance of a custom so long established 
and so deeply seated, that the applications were, as a 
matter of course, made to statesmen and to judges, by the 
most respectable members of the community, and by the 
two universities, (c) 

Early in March Sir Francis was appointed Lord Keeper, 
and, on the 4th of April, Buckingham thus wrote: "My 
honourable Lord, — Whereas the late Lord Chancellor 
thought it fit to dismiss out of the Chancery a cause 
touching Henry Skipwith to the common law, where he 
desireth it should be decided ; these are to intreat your 
lordship in the gentleman's favour, that if the adverse 
party shall attempt to bring it now back again into your 
lordship's court, you would not retain it there, but let it 
rest in the place where now it is, that without more vexa- 
tion unto him in posting him from one to another, he may 
have a final hearing and determination thereof. And so I 
rest your Lordship's ever at command, G. Buckingham. 

" My Lord, this is a business wherein I spake to my 
Lord Chancellor, whereupon he dismissed the suit." (d) 



(a) Speech to the Judges before the circuit, vol. vii. p. 258. 

(6) See ante, p. clxxvi. 

(c) See note Z Z at the end. 

(d) This is the first of many letters which the Marquis of Buckingham 



CCXXXIV LIFE OF BACON. 

Scarcely a week passed without a repetition of these 
solicitations, (a) 
Wrayn- When Sir Francis was first entrusted with the great 

seal, he found a cause entitled Fisher v. Wraynham, which 
had been in the court from the year 1606. He immediately 
examined the proceedings, and, having ordered the attend- 
ance of the parties, and heard the arguments of counsel, 
he terminated this tedious suit, by decreeing against the 
defendant Wraynham, who was a man described as holding 
a smooth pen and a fine speech, but a fiery spirit. He 
immediately published a libel against the Chancellor and 
the late Master of the Rolls : for which he was prosecuted 
in the Star Chamber, {b) 

Sir Henry Yelverton, in stating the case, said, " I was 
of counsel with Mr. Wraynham, and pressed his cause as 
far as equity would suffer. But this gentleman being of 
an unquiet spirit, after a secret murmuring, breaks out 
into a complaint to his majesty, and, not staying his return 
out of Scotland, but fancying to himself, as if he saw 
some cloud arising over my lord, compiled his undigested 
thoughts into a libel, and fastens it on the King. And his 
most princely majesty, finding it stuffed with most bitter 
reviling speeches against so great and worthy a judge, 



wrote to Lord Bacon in favour of persons who had cases depending in, or 
likely to come into the court of Chancery. The marquis made the same 
kind of applications to Lord Bacon's successor, the Lord Keeper Williams, 
in whose life by Bishop Hacket, part i. p. 107, we are informed, that 
" there was not a cause of moment, but, as soon as it came to publication, 
one of the parties brought letters from this mighty peer, and the Lord 
Keeper's patron." — See note ZZ at the end. See this letter, vol.xii. p. 314. 

(a) See a collection of some of these letters in note Z Z at the end. 

(6) State Trials. See a tract, published 1725, entitled, Vindication of 
the Chancellor from the aspersions of Wraynham. See Hobart's Reports, 
p. 220, and Popham, p. 135. 



WRAYNHAM. CCXXXV 

hath of himself commanded me this day to set forth and 
manifest his fault unto your lordships, that so he might 
receive deserved punishment. In this pamphlet Mr. Wrayn- 
ham saith, he had two decrees in the first Lord Chancellor's 
time, and yet are both cancelled by this Lord Chancellor 
in a preposterous manner : without cause ; without matter ; 
without any legal proceedings; without precedent, upon 
the party's bare suggestions, ' and without calling Mr. 
Wraynham to answer: to reward Fisher's fraud and per- 
juries; to palliate his unjust proceedings; and to confound 
Wraynham's estate : and that my lord was therein led by 
the rule of his own fancy. But he stayeth not here. 
Not content to scandalize the living, he vilifies the dead, 
the Master of the Rolls, a man of great understanding, 
great pains, great experience, great dexterity, and of great 
integrity ; yet, because he followed not this man's humour 
in the report thereof, he brands him with aspersions." 

And Mr. Serjeant Crowe, who was also counsel for the 
prosecution, said, " Mr. Wraynham, thus to traduce my 
lord, is a foul offence ; you cannot traduce him of corrup- 
tion, for thanks be to God, he hath always despised 
riches, and set honour and justice before his eyes. My 
lords, I was of counsel with Fisher, and I knew the merits 
of the cause, for my Lord Chancellor seeing what recom- 
pense Fisher ought in justice to have received, and finding 
a disability in Wraynham to perform it, was enforced to 
take the land from Wraynham to give it to Fisher, which 
is hardly of value to satisfy Fisher's true debt and 
damages." 

Wraynham was convicted by the unanimous opinion 
of the court; (a) and the Archbishop of Canterbury, in 



(a) Consisting of Sir Edward Coke, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, 
the Lord Chancellor Bacon, the Lord Chief Justices of the King's Bench, 



CCXXXV1 LIFE OF BACON. 

delivering his judgment, said, " The fountain of wisdom, 
hath set this glorious work of the world in the order 
and beauty wherein it stands, and hath appointed princes, 
magistrates, and judges, to hear the causes of the people. 
It is fitting, therefore, to protect them from the slanders 
of wicked men, that shall speak evil of magistrates and 
men in authority, blaspheming them. And therefore, 
since Wraynham hath blasphemed and spoken evil, and 
slandered a chief magistrate, it remaineth, that in honour 
to God, and in duty to the king and kingdom, he should 
receive severe punishment." (a) 

Common Pleas, and Exchequer, the Secretary of State, and other states- 
men ; of the Bishops of Ely and London, and the Archbishop of Canter- 
bury. 

(a) See in Hooker the following noble passage : " Since the time that 
God did first proclaim the edicts of his law upon the world, heaven and 
earth have hearkened unto his voice, and their labour hath been to do his 
will. He made a law for the rain; he gave his decree unto the sea, that 
the waters should not pass his commandment. Now, if nature should 
intermit her course, and leave altogether, though it were for a while, the 
observation of her own laws : if those principal and mother elements of the 
world, whereof all things in this lower world are made, should lose the 
qualities which now they have ; if the frame of that heavenly arch erected 
over our heads should loosen and dissolve itself; if celestial spheres should 
forget their wonted motions, and by irregular volubility turn themselves 
any way as it might happen ; if the prince of the lights of heaven, which 
now, as a giant, doth run his unwearied course, should as it were, through 
a languishing faintness, begin to stand, and to rest himself; if the moon 
should wander from her beaten way, the times and seasons of the year 
blend themselves by disordered and confused mixture, the winds breathe 
out their last gasp, the clouds yield no rain, the earth be defeated of 
heavenly influence, the fruits of the earth pine away, as children at the 
withered breasts of their mother, no longer able to yield them relief; what 
would become of man himself, whom these things do now all serve ? See 
we not plainly, that obedience of creatures unto the law of nature is the 
stay of the whole world ? 

"Of law there can be no less acknowledged than that her seat is the 
bosom of God ; her voice the harmony of the world : all things in heaven 
and earth do her homage ; the very least as feeling her care, and the greatest 



PRESENTS. CCXXXV11 

According to the custom of the times, a suit of hangings 
for furniture, worth about £160, was presented to the 
Lord Chancellor, on behalf of Fisher, by Mr. Shute, who, 
with Sir Henry Yelverton, was one of his counsel in the 
cause, (a) 

This present was not peculiar to the cause of Wraynham 
and Fisher, but presents on behalf of the respective suitors 
were publicly made by the counsel in the cause, and were 
offered by the most virtuous members of the community, 
without their having, or being supposed to have any influ- 
ence upon the judgment of the court. 

In the cause of Rowland Egerton and Edward Egerton Egerton 
£400 was presented before the award was made, on behalf ^ nd Eger " 
of Edward, by the counsel in the cause, Sir Richard Young 
and Sir George Hastings, who was also a member of the 
House of Commons, but the Lord Keeper decided against 
him: (b) and £300 was presented on behalf of Rowland, 



as not exempted from her power. Both angels and men, and creatures of 
what condition soever, though each in different sort and manner, yet all 
with uniform consent, admiring her as the mother of their peace and joy." 

(a) This appears in the charge of bribery, afterwards preferred against 
the Chancellor. — To the eighth article of the charge, " In the cause 
between Fisher and Wrenham, the Lord Chancellor, after the decree 
passed, received a suit of hangings worth one hundred and threescore 
pounds and better, which Fisher gave him by advice of Mr. Shute :" I 
confess and declare, that some time after the decree passed, I being at that 
time upon remove to York House, I did receive a suit of hangings of the 
value, I think, mentioned in the charge, by Mr. Shute, as from Sir Edward 
Fisher, towards the furnishing of my house, as some others, that were no 
ways suitors, did present me with the like about that time. 

(b) The second article of the charge, namely, "In the same cause he 
received from Edward Egerton £400 :" I confess and declare, that soon 
after my first coming to the seal, being a time when I was presented by 
many, the £400 mentioned in the said charge, was delivered unto me in a 
purse, and, as I now call to mind, from Mr. Edward Egerton ; but as far 
as I can recollect, it was expressed by them that brought it to be for 
favours past, and not in respect of favours to come. 



CCXXXV111 



LIFE OF BACON, 



Awbrey 

and 

Bronker. 



Grocers 
and Apo- 
thecaries. 



after the award was made in his favour by the Chancellor 
and Lord Hobart;(«) and in the cause of Awbrey and 
Bronker £100 was presented on behalf of Awbrey, before 
the decree, by his counsel, Sir George Hastings, and a 
severe decree was made against Awbrey. (b) 

In a reference between the company of Grocers and 
Apothecaries, the Grocers presented £200, and the Apothe- 
caries a taster of gold, and a present of ambergris, (c) 



(a) To the first article of the charge, namely, " In the cause between 
Sir Rowland Egerton and Edward Egerton, the Lord Chancellor received 
£300 on the part of Sir Rowland Egerton, before he had decreed the 
cause :" I do confess and declare, that upon a reference from his majesty of 
all suits and controversies between Sir Rowland Egerton and Edward 
Egerton, both parties submitted themselves to my award by recognizances 
reciprocal in ten thousand marks apiece ; thereupon, after divers hearings, 
I made my award with the advice and consent of my Lord Hobart; the 
award was perfected and published to the parties, which was in February. 
Then some days after, the £300, mentioned in the charge, was delivered 
unto me. Afterwards Mr. Edward Egerton fled off from the award ; then 
in Midsummer term following a suit was begun in Chancery by Sir Row- 
land to have the award confirmed, and upon that suit was the decree made 
mentioned in the article. 

(b) To the sixteenth article of the charge, namely, " In a cause between 
Sir William Bronker and Awbrey, the Lord Chancellor received from 
Awbrey £100 :" I do confess and declare that the sum was given and 
received, but the manner of it I leave to witnesses. — See in note GGG 
the proceedings of 17th March, where it appears that " a killing order was 
made against Awbrey." 

(c) To the twenty- fourth, twenty-fifth, twenty-sixth articles of the charge, 
namely, the twenty-fourth, " There being a reference from his majesty to 
his lordship of a business between the Grocers and the Apothecaries, the 
Lord Chancellor received of the Grocers £200." The twenty-fifth article, 
" In the same cause, he received of the Apothecaries, that stood with the 
Grocers, a taster of gold worth between £400 and £500, and a present of 
ambergrease." And the twenty-sixth article, " He received of a new com- 
pany of Apothecaries, that stood against the Grocers, £100 :" To these I 
confess and declare, that the several sums from the three parties were 
received ; and for that it was no judicial business, but a concord of compo- 
sition between the parties, and that as I thought all had received good, and 
they were all three common purses, I thought it the less matter to receive 



BERTRAM. CCXXX1X 

In the cause of Hody and Hody, which was for a great Hody and 
inheritance, a present of gold buttons, worth about £50, ° y ' 
was given by Sir Thomas Perrot, one of the counsel in the 
cause, (a) after the suit was ended. 

This slander of Wraynham's was not the only evil to 
which he was exposed. 

On the 12th of November, 1616, John Bertram, a suitor Lord Clif- 
in Chancery, being displeased with a report made by Sir on ' 
John Tindal, one of the masters of the court, shot him 
dead as he was alighting from his carriage, and, upon 
his committal to prison, he destroyed himself. An account 
of this murder was published under the superintendence 
of Sir Francis, to counteract the erroneous opinions which 
had been circulated through the country, and the false 
commiseration which the misery of this wretched offender 
had excited, (b) in times, when the community was alive 
to hear any slander against the administration of justice. 

that which they voluntarily presented ; for if I had taken it in the nature of 
a corrupt bribe, I knew it could not be concealed, because it must needs 
be put to account to the three several companies. 

(«) The article of the charge, namely, " In the cause between Hody and 
Hody, he received a dozen of buttons value £50, about a fortnight after 
the cause was ended :" I confess and declare, that as it is laid in the 
charge, about a fortnight after the cause was ended, it being a suit for a 
great inheritance, there was gold buttons about the value of £50, as is 
mentioned in the charge, presented unto me, as I remember, by Sir Thomas 
Perrott and the party himself. 

(b) In a letter to the King, dated 21st November, at ten at night, 1616, 
vol. xii. p. 311, he says, " For this wretched murderer Bertram, now gone 
to his place, I have, perceiving your majesty's good liking of what I 
propounded, taken order that there shall be a. declaration concerning the 
cause in the King's Bench, by occasion of punishment of the offence of 
his keeper; and another in Chancery, upon the occasion of moving for an 
order, according to his just and righteous report. And yet withal, I have 
set on work a good pen* (and myself will overlook it) for making some 
little pamphlet fit to fly abroad in the country." 

* Birch, p. 104, says it was Mr. Trott. 



CCxl LIFE OF BAGON. 

When the morbid feeling of insane minds is awakened, 
there is always some chance of a repetition of its out- 



The tract, containing some miserable wood-cuts of the murder, and of 
the murderer hanging against the wall, is entitled, " A true Relation of a 
most desperate Murder, committed upon the Body of Sir John Tindall, 
Knighte, one of the Maisters of the Chancery, who with a pistoll charged 
with 3 bulletts, was slaine going into his chamber within Lincolnes Inne, 
the 12 day of November, by one John Bartram, Gent, which Bartram 
afterwards hanged himselfe in the Kinges-Bench in Southewark, on Sun- 
day, being the 17th day following, 1616." — It contains the following 
passage : " Two several daies (with two or three keepers at least waiting on 
him,) was he sent for by the judges to be examined. At the first going, 
he was called to the barre, and an inditement read to him for the murther 
aforesaid, to which he pleaded not guilty. At his passing along the 
streets, his presence so full of age, and his face so full of sorrowes, together 
with the rumour of his wrongfull undoing, which quickly spread it selfe 
amongst the people, moved them to such commiseration, that they shed 
tears to see what misery he was falne into ; they prayed for him, and cursed 
the other. Upon the Saturday, before the Sunday in the which he cast 
away himselfe, did he thus goe abroad, and returning about foure of the 
clocke in the evening, with a slowe and dull pace, fitting to his yeeres. 
He seemed in his chamber rather vexed than dejected. His thoughts 
appeared and made shew, to be troubled than tormented. And rather 
because hee did expect within a day or two at the most, to be fetched to 
his tryall : and the next day after to be sent to execution. Which as some 
say, hee fearing that it should have beene to hang alive in chaynes, strucke 
so strong impression unto him, that to avoid that shame, and that torture, 
he purposed to lay violent hands upon himselfe, if he could meet oppor- 
tunity." 

Annexed to the tract is another tract, entitled, " A true Relation of the 
Ground, Occasion, and Circumstances, of that horrible Murther committed 
by John Bartram, Gent, upon the body of Sir John Tyndal, of Lincolns 
Inne, Knight, one of the Masters of the Honorable Court of Chancery, the 
twelfth day of this instant Novemb. Written by way of Letter from a 
Gentleman to his Country friend. Together with the Examination of the 
said Bartram, taken before the right Honourable Sir Fra. Bacon, Knight, 
his Maiesties Atturney Generall, and Sir Henry Yelverton, Knight, his 
Maiesties Sollicker General, according to speciall directions given by his 
Maiestie in that behalfe. London, printed by John Beale. 1616." — As 
John Beale printed for Bacon, it is probable that it was under his superin- 
tendence. 



LORD CLIFTON. CCxli 

rages, (a) Towards the end of the year the Lord Keeper 
was in danger of sharing the fate of Sir John Tindal, 
from the vindictive temper of Lord Clifton, against whom 
a decree had been made, who declared publicly that " he 
was sorry he had not stabbed the Lord Keeper in his 
chair the moment he pronounced judgment." (b) As 
soon as this misguided suitor, who afterwards destroyed 
himself, was committed to the Tower, Bacon wrote to 
Buckingham, saying, " I pray your lordship in humble- 
ness to let his majesty know that I little fear the Lord 
Clifton, but I much fear the example, that it will animate 
ruffians and rodomonti extremely against the seats of 
justice, which are his majesty's own seats, yea, and 
against all authority and greatness, if this pass without 
public censure and example, it having gone already so 
far as that the person of a baron hath been committed 
to the Tower. The punishment it may please his majesty 
to remit, and I shall, not formally but heartily, intercede 
for him, but an example, setting myself aside, I wish for 
terror of persons that may be more dangerous than he, 
towards the first judge of the kingdom." (b) 



At the conclusion is a third tract, entitled, " The Examination of John 
Bartram, taken this 16 day of November, 1616, before Sir Francis Bacon, 
his Maiesties Atturney Generall, and Sir Henry Yelverton, his Maiesties 
Solicitor Generall. London, printed by John Beale, 1616." 

(a) See note X O U at the end. 

(b) See letter of March 17, 1617, vol. xii. p. 257 ; and in another 
letter, vol. xii. p. 255, he says, " If his majesty at any time ask touching 
the Lord Clifton's business, I pray your lordship represent to his majesty 
thus much, that whatsoever hath passed I thank God I neither fear him 
nor hate him; but I am wonderful careful of the seat of justice, that they 
may still be well munited, being principal sinews of his majesty's authority. 
Therefore the course will be (as I am advised) that for this heinous mis- 
prision (that the party without all colour or shadow of cause should threaten 
the life of his judge, and of the highest judge in the kingdom next his 
majesty) he be first examined, and if he confess it, then an ore tenus ; if he 

vol, xv. r 



CCXill 



Hi LIFE OF BACON. 



Not content with discharging the common duties of a 
judge, he laboured, whenever an opportunity offered, to 
improve the administration of justice. 
Law He carried into effect the proposal, which, when Attorney 

Reporters. Q enera \ f he had submitted to the King, that two legal re- 
porters, with an annual stipend to each of £100, should 
be appointed, (a) — He realized the intention, which he ex- 
Ordi- pressed upon taking his seat, (b) by issuing ordinances for 
nances in ^ better administration of justice in the Chancery, upon 
which the practice of the court at this day is founded, (c) 



confess it not, then an information in the Star chamber, and he to remain 
where he is till the hearing. But I do purposely forbear yet to have him 
examined till the decree or agreement between him and my Lord Aubigny 
(which is now ready) be perfected, lest it should seem an oppression by the 
terror of the one to beat him down in the other. Thus I ever rest your 
Lordship's true friend and devoted servant, Fr. Bacon, Cane." 

(a) See his proposal for amending the laws, vol. v. p. 349. " It resteth 
but for your majesty to appoint some grave and sound lawyers, with some 
honourable stipend." 

In Rymer's Fcedera, vol. xvii. p. 27, may be found " Ordinatio quae 
constituantur les Reporters de Lege." It is directed to Sir Francis Bacon 
and to Sir Julius Csesar. After stating the King's anxiety to preserve 
the ancient law, and to prevent innovations, it has been thought good to 
revive and renew the ancient custom, to appoint some grave and learned 
lawyers as reporters, &c. 

In a letter to Buckingham of October 16, 1617, vol. xii. p. 334, he says, 
" I send also two bills for letters patents to the two reporters ; and for the 
persons, I send also four names, with my commendations of those two, for 
which I will answer upon my knowledge. The names must be filled in 
the blanks, and so they are to be returned." 

What might be the advantages of these appointments during the reign of 
James, it may perhaps be unnecessary to inquire. In the present times, 
when there is a liberty of unlicensed printing, the desire to diffuse know- 
ledge, and the facility to obtain pecuniary emolument, require not the aid 
of government. Between the years 1800 and 1823, there were no less than 
a hundred and eight volumes of reports published ; and they are now 
much, very much, increased. 

(b) See vol. vii. p. 273. 

(c) For the Ordinances, see vol. vii. p. 256. 



JUDGE. CCxl 



111 



Before the circuits he assembled the judges, and explained 
his views of their duties, when they, as the planets of the 
kingdom, were representing their sovereign, in the admi- 
nistration of law and justice; (a) — to advance kind feeling 
and familiar intercourse, he introduced a mode, at that 
time not usual, of inviting the judges to dinner ; thus mani- 
festing, as he says in a letter to Lord Burleigh, that it is 
ever a part of wisdom not to exclude inferior matters of 
access amongst the care of great : and, upon the promotion 
of any judge, he availed himself of the opportunity to 
explain the nature of judicial virtues, of which an extensive 
outline may be seen in his works, (b) 

" The judge is a man of ability, (c) drawing his learning- 
out of his books, and not out of his brain ;(d) rather learned 
than ingenious ; more plausible than witty ; more reverend 
than plausible, (e) — He is a man of gravity;^") of a re- 

(a) Vol. vii. p. 258. 

(b) Essays on Judicature, Delays, and Dispatch, in vol. i. ; his Advice 
to Villiers, vol. vi. p. 400; and the speech used by Sir Francis Bacon, 
Lord Keeper of the Great Seal of England, to Sir William Jones, upon 
his calling to be Lord Chief Justice of Ireland, 1617; the Lord Keeper's 
speech in the Exchequer to Sir John Denham, when he was called to be 
one of the barons of the Exchequer; and to Justice Hutton, when called 
to be one of the judges of the Common Pleas. — Vol. vii. p. 263. 

(c) The ignorance of the judge is the ruin of the innocent 

(d) He should draw his learning out of his books, and not out of his 
brain; and continue the studying of books, and not spend upon the old 
stock. — Bacon. 

(e) Lord Bacon says, judges should be rather reserved than affable. 
The judges are, or ought to be, of a reserved and retired character, and 
wholly unconnected with the political world. — Burke. 

(J") Non est major confusio, quam serii et joci. 

See his tract on Church Controversies, vol. vii. p. 32, where he says, 
u Job speaking of the majesty and gravity of a judge in himself saith, ' If 
I did smile, they believed it not :' as if he should have said, if I diverted 
or glanced upon conceit of mirth, yet men's minds were so possessed with 
a reverence of the action in hand, as they could not receive it." 

As for jest, there be certain things which ought to be privileged from it; 



CCxliv LIFE OF BACOX. 

tired nature, and unconnected with politics : (d) his virtues 
are inlaid, not embossed. — He is more advised than con- 
fident. — He has a right understanding of justice, depending 
not so much on reading other men's writings, as upon 
the goodness of his own natural reason and meditation, (e) 
— He is of sound judgment; not diverted from the truth 
by the strength of immediate impression. — He is a man of 



namely, religion, matters of state, great persons, any man's present business 
of importance, and any case that deserveth pity; yet there be some that 
think their wits have been asleep, except they dart out somewhat that is 
piquant and to the quick, that is a vein which would be bridled : " Parce 
puer stimulis, et fortius utere loris." — See Essay of Discourse, vol. i. p. 113. 

Hence, therefore, levity in a judge always is, to a certain extent, painful, 
and particularly to the suitors, to whom the present business is important. 
" It may be play to you, but it is death to us." Perhaps the right line 
may be seen in his essay on Adversity : " In embroidery we find it more 
pleasing to have a lively work on a solemn ground, than a dead work 
upon a light ground; judge therefore of the pleasures of the heart by the 
pleasures of the eye. 

He avoideth all jesting on men in misery : easily may he put them out 
of countenance whom he hath power to put out of life. — Fuller. 

(d) He scarce ever meddled in state intrigues, yet upon a proposition 
that was set on foot by the Lord Keeper Bridgeman, for a comprehension 
of the more moderate dissenters, and a limited indulgence towards such as 
could not be brought with the comprehension, he dispensed with his 
maxim of avoiding to engage in matters of state. — Hale's Life, p. 68. 

He would never be brought to discourse of public matters in private con- 
versation ; but in questions of law, when any young lawyer put a case to 
him he was very communicative, especially while he was at the bar : but 
when he came to the bench he was very reserved. — Hale's Life. 

(e) A judge should be a person of good knowledge and ability; well 
versed and skilled in the laws concerning matters under debate; endued 
with good measure of reason, enabling him to sift and canvass matters of 
fact, so as to compare them accurately with the rules of right. — Barrow. 

The things that make a good judge, or good interpreter of the laws, are, 
first, a right understanding of that principal law of nature, called equity ; 
which depending not on the reading of other men's writings, but on the 
goodness of a man's own natural reason and meditation, is presumed to be 
in those most that have most leisure, and had the most inclination to medi- 
tate thereon. — Hobbs. 



JUDGE. CCxlv 

integrity : (f)-— of well regulated passions; beyond the 
influence either of anger, (g) by which he may be in- 
capable of judging, or of hope either of money (A) or of 

(f) The enamel which adorneth the dove's nest never shines so clear 
and glorious as when the sun shines upon it : so the ornaments of power 
never look so splendid as when they are surrounded by a glory of virtue. 

Above all things, integrity is their portion and proper virtue. " Cursed," 
saith the law, " is he that removeth the landmark." The mislayer of a 
mere-stone is to blame; but it is the unjust judge that is the capital 
remover of landmarks, when he defineth amiss of lands and property. One 
foul sentence doth more hurt than many foul examples; for these do but 
corrupt the stream, the other corrupteth the fountain : so saith Solomon, 
" Fons turbatus, et vena corrupta est Justus cadens in causa sua coram 
adversario." He so hates bribes, that he is jealous to receive any kindness 
above the ordinary proportion of friendship. — Bacon. 

It is not ability alone that is sufficient. He must have both science 
and conscience. — Fuller. 

He that pretendeth to judge others should himself be innocent; under 
no indictment, and not liable to condemnation. Is it not very improper 
for a criminal, for one who is not only in truth, and in his own conscience 
guilty, but who standeth actually convicted of heinous offences, to sit upon 
the bench determining about the deeds and states of others ? It is the case 
of us all, we are all notoriously guilty of heinous crimes before God, we 
all do lie under the sentence of his law, we do all stand in need of pardon 
from our judge; his mercy is our only hope and refuge; and shall we then 
pretend to be judges, or be passing sentence on our brethren ? If only 
those who are free and guiltless should judge, who could undertake it? 
There would surely be no more than there appeared then, when in the 
case of the woman taken in adultery our Lord propounded the like con- 
dition : He that is without sin amongst you, let him cast the first stone at 
her : upon which proposition the sequel was, and they that heard it being 
convicted by their own conscience, went out one by one, beginning at the 
eldest, even to the last, and Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing 
in the midst ; so infallibly, should no man be allowed to judge who was 
not himself void of the like guilt, would every man escape censure. 

(g) Sir M. Hale, in his rules for things necessary to be continually had 
in remembrance, says, " That in the execution of justice I carefully lay 
aside my own passions, and not give way to them, however provoked." 

(h) The next security for the impartial administration of justice, especially 
in decisions to which government is a party, is the independency of the 
judges. As protection against every illegal attack upon the rights of the 



CCxlvi LIFE OF BACOX. 

worldly advancement, (A) by which he may decide un- 

subject by the servants of the crown is to be sought for from these tribunals, 
the j udges of the land become not unfrequently the arbitrators between the 
king and the people, on which account they ought to be independent of 
either ; or, what is the same thing, equally dependent upon both : that is, 
if they be appointed by the one, they should be removeable only by the 
other. This was the policy which dictated that memorable improvement 
in our constitution, by which the judges, who before the revolution held 
their offices during the pleasure of the King can now be deprived of them 
only by an address from both houses of parliament, as the most regular, 
solemn, and authentic way by which the dissatisfaction of the people can 
be expressed. — Paley. 

To the community this is of importance. 1. To secure his impartiality. 
2. Because not seemly for him to be haggling as hucksters, and labouring 
for his subsistence. 

To make this independency of the judges complete, the public salaries 
of their office ought not only to be certain both in amount and continuance, 
but so liberal as to secure their integrity from the temptation of secret 
bribes ; which liberality will answer also the further purpose of preserving 
their jurisdiction from contempt, and their characters from suspicion, as 
well as of rendering the office worthy of the ambition of men of eminence 
in their profession. — Paley. 

When the present condition of the judges is compared with that when 
the crown had a power of dismissing them at pleasure, a great step appears 
to be gained towards the upright administration of justice. Their places 
and salaries are now secured for life, except upon an address from both 
houses of parliament, which nothing but flagrant misconduct on their parts 
can be supposed to produce, and they may pronounce sentence without 
any fear of the loss of dignity or emolument. 

(h) Hobbs says a judge should have a contempt of unnecessary riches 
and preferments. Their fortunes should be above temptation, and their 
spirits above private influence. 

He should be incapable of promotion. Sir William Jones, the late judge 
in India, in one of his letters to Sir James Macpherson respecting some 
promotion that appears to have been offered to him, expresses himself in 
the following terms : " If the whole legislature of Britain were to offer me 
a different station from that which I now fill, I should gratefully and 
respectfully decline it. The character of an ambitious judge is, in my 
opinion, very dangerous to public justice ; and if I were sole legislator, it 
should be enacted that every judge as well as every bishop should remain 
for life in the place which he first accepted." 

Lord Teignmouth's Life of Sir W. Jones. 



judge. ccxlvii 

justly; or of fear (i) either 'of the censure of others, which 



(i) He who will faithfully perform his duty, in a station of great trust 
and power, must needs incur the utter enmity of many, and the high dis- 
pleasure of more ; he must sometimes struggle with the passions and inte- 
rests, resist the applications, and even punish the vices of men potent in 
the commonwealth, who will employ their ill influence towards procuring 
impunity, or extorting undue favours for themselves or their dependents. 
He must conquer all these difficulties, and remove all these hindrances out 
of the way that leads to justice; must dare even to break the jaws of the 
wicked, and to pluck the spoil out of his teeth. He is the guardian of the 
public quiet ; appointed to restrain violence, to quell seditions and tumults, 
and to preserve that order and peace which preserves the world. — Atterbury. 

That judge is most loved for his good nature who is feared for his 
resolution. 

When early in the reign of Charles the First, Judge Jenkins imprisoned 
divers persons in his circuit, or condemned them to die, as being guilty of 
high treason, this provoked the officers of government; and, the judge 
being taken prisoner at the capture of Hereford, he was hurried up to 
London, and committed to the Tower. On being brought to the bar of 
the court of Chancery, he denied the authority of the commissioners, 
because their seal was counterfeited, in consequence of which he was sent 
to Newgate. From thence he was brought to the bar of the House of 
Commons, and reprimanded by the Speaker for refusing to kneel. He 
answered, " As long as you had the King's arms engraved on your mace, 
and acted under his authority, had I come here I would have bowed my 
body in obedience to that authority." For this speech he was, without 
trial, voted guilty of high treason, and he was sent back to Newgate. 
After this the house sent a committee to Newgate, making splendid offers 
to the judge if he would acknowledge their power to be lawful. To which 
he answered, " Far be it from me to own rebellion to be lawful because it 
is successful." Upon this they admonished him that he had a wife and 
nine children. Upon which the old judge said, " Had my wife and 
children petitioned you in this matter, I would have looked upon her as 
a whore, and them as bastards." Upon this the committee departed, 
leaving him in the expectation of being led out to execution. " They 
may lead me," said he, " if so it please them, but I will suffer with the 
Bible under one arm and Magna Charta under the other." 

Rex v. Knollys, 6 Wm. and M. 1 Ld. Raym. 10. — At the conclusion 
of this case, it is said, Note, that this judgment was very distasteful to some 
lords; and therefore in Hilary term, 1697, 9 Wm. III. the Lord Chief 
Justice Holt was summoned to give his reasons of this judgment to the 



ecxlviii life of bacons 

is cowardice, or of giving pain when it ought to be 
given, which is improper compassion, (k) — He is just both 



House of Peers, and a committee was appointed to hear and report them 
to the house, of which the Earl of Rochester was chairman. But the 
Chief Justice Holt refused to give them in so extrajudicial a manner; but 
he said that if the record was removed before the peers by error, so that it 
came judicially before them, he would give his reasons very willingly ; but 
if he gave them in this case, it would be of very ill consequence to all 
judges hereafter in all cases. At which answer some lords were so offended, 
that they would have committed the Chief Justice to the Tower, but, not- 
withstanding, all their endeavours vanished in smoke. 

Colonel Whaley, who commanded the garrison, came into court, and 
urged u that a man was killed for disobeying the Protector's order, and 
that the soldier was but doing his duty, yet the judge (Sir M. Hale) 
regarded both his reasons and his threatening very little, and therefore pro- 
nounced sentence upon him. — Hale's Life. 

Two of Sir Matthew Hale's rules are : That popular or court applause or 
distaste have no influence upon any thing I do, in point of distribution of 
justice. Not to be solicitous what men will say or think, so long as I 
keep myself exactly according to the rules of justice. 

See the account of Judge Gascoyne in Henry V. 

(k) It is for you, upon reading the information, and by comparing it 
with the pamphlet, to see whether the sense the Attorney General has 
affixed is fairly affixed, always being guided by this that where it is truly 
ambiguous and doubtful, the inclination of your judgment should be on 
the side of innocence; but if you find you cannot acquit him without dis- 
torting sentences, you are to meet this case, and all other cases, as I stated 
yesterday, with the fortitude of men, feeling that they have a duty upon 
them superior to all leaning to parties ; namely, the administration of jus- 
tice in the particular cause. — Lord Kenyon, in Stockdale's case. 

Gentlemen, let me desire you again and again to consider all the cir- 
cumstances of this man's case, abstracted from the influence of prejudice 
and habit ; and if ought of passion assumes dominion over you, let it be 
of that honest, generous nature, that good men must feel when they see an 
innocent man depending on their verdict for life. 

Curran, for Finnerty, p. 222. 

One of Sir Matthew Hale's rules is, " That in business capital, though 
my nature prompt me to pity, yet to consider that there is also a pity due 
to the country." Another is, " If in criminals it is a measuring cast to 
incline to mercy and acquittal. In criminals of blood, if the fact be 
evident, severity is justice." 



JUDGE. CCxlix 

in private (/) and in public. - — He without solicitation 
accepts the office, with a sense of public duty, (m) — He is 

(/) After Sir Matthew Hale was made a judge, he would needs pay 
more for every purchase he made than it was worth ; if it had been but a 
horse he was to buy, he would have outbid the price. — Hale's Life, p. 153. 

For such law as man giveth other wight, 

He should himself usin the same by right. — Chaucer. 

I have somewhere heard that Lord Chancellor Hardwicke, who was 
extremely fond of money, directed his steward to buy for him an estate 
which was to be sold in the neighbourhood. The steward returned, and 
informed his lordship that he was the purchaser of the estate, and had made 
a good bargain, for that it was worth £8,000 more than the sum which he 
had given. Lord Hardwicke ordered the fact to be ascertained, and directed 
the £8,000 to be paid to the person of whom the estate was bought. " The 
Chancellor of England ought not," he said, " to give less for an estate than 
it is worth." 

(m) When an application was made to General Washington to accept 
the command of the American army, he said, " Though I am truly sensible 
of the high honour done me in this appointment, yet I feel great distress 
from a consciousness that my abilities and military experience may not be 
equal to the extensive and important trust: however, as the Congress 
desire it, I will enter into the momentous duty, and exert every power 
I possess in their service, and for support of the glorious cause ; and I beg 
they will accept my most cordial thanks for this distinguished testimony of 
their approbation. But, lest some unlucky event should happen unfavour- 
able to my reputation, I beg it may be remembered by every gentleman in 
the room, that I this day declare, with the utmost sincerity, I do not think 
myself equal to the command I am honoured with. As to pay, I beg 
leave to assure the Congress, that as no pecuniary consideration could 
have tempted me to accept this arduous employment, at the expense of 
my domestic ease and happiness, I do not wish to make any profit from it. 
I will keep an exact account of my expenses. These, I doubt not, they 
will discharge, and that is all I desire." 

Barrow, Serm. 20. p. 98. No judge should intrude himself into the 
office, or assume a judicial power without competent authority ; that is, by 
delegation from superior powers, or by voluntary reference of the parties 
concerned. 

He ought not to buy his place. " Grapes will not be gathered of thorns 
and thistles. The judge's office ought not to be bought. They that buy 
justice by wholesale to make themselves savers must sell it by retail. 

Fuller. 



cc 



1 LIFE OF BACON. 



patient (k) in hearing, in inquiry, and in insult ;(l) quick 
in apprehension, slow in anger. His determination to 
censure is always painful to him, like Csesar when he 
threatened Metellus with instant death, ' Adolescens, 
durius est mihi hoc dicere quam facere.'(m) — He does 
not affect the reputation of dispatch, (ri) nor forget that 

If any sue to be made a judge, for my own part I should suspect him : 
but if, either directly or indirectly, he should bargain for a place of judica- 
ture, let him be rejected with shame; vendere jure potest , emerat illeprius. 
See ante, p. clxxvi. 

(k) It being no grace to a judge, first to find that which he might have 
heard in due time from the bar ; or to show quickness of conceit in cutting off 
evidence or counsel too short ; or to prevent information by questions, though 
pertinent : an overspeaking judge being no well-tuned cymbal. — Bacon. 

(/) Small streams are agitated by the wind: deep streams move on. 
Scarcely any part of a judge's conduct demands more judgment than the 
proper mode of acting when insulted, when the generality of men are off 
their guard. 

If any adverse party crossed him, he would patiently reply, " If another 
punish me, I will not punish myself." — Lloyd's Life of Sir Edw. Coke. 

He is calm amidst every storm. He is the steady rock amidst unruly 
waves. 

(w) He behaved himself with that regard to the prisoners which became 
both the gravity of the judge, and the pity that was due to men whose lives 
lay at stake, so that nothing of jeering or unreasonable severity ever fell 
from him. He also examined the witnesses in the softest manner, taking 
care that they should be put under no confusion, which might disorder 
their memory; and he summed all the evidence so equally when he 
charged the jury, that the criminals themselves never complained of him. 
When it came to him to give sentence, he did it with that composedness 
and decency, and his speeches to the prisoners directing them to prepare 
for death, were so weighty, so free of all affectation, and so serious and 
devout, that many loved to go to the trials when he sate judge, to be edified 
by his speeches and behaviour in them, and used to say, they heard very 
few such sermons. — Hale. 

The sentence of condemnation he pronounceth with all gravity. 'Tis 
best when steeped in the judge's tears. — Fuller. 

(n) He did not affect the reputation of quickness and dispatch, by a hasty and 
captious hearing of counsel. He would bear with the meanest, and give every 



JUDGE. CCll 

an over-speaking judge is no well tuned cymbal. — 
He is diligent in discovering the merits of the cause: 
by his own exertions ; (p ) from the witnesses, and 
the advocates. — He is cautious in his judgment; not 
forming a hasty opinion: not tenacious in retaining an 
opinion when formed : ' never ashamed of being wiser 
to-day than he was yesterday:' never wandering from 
the substance of the matter in judgment into useless 
subtlety and refinement. — He does not delay justice. 



man his full scope, thinking it much better to lose time than patience. — Life of 
Hale. Seneca says of Claudius, " He passed sentence una tan turn parte 
audita saepe et nulla." He is patient and attentive in hearing the pleadings 
and witnesses on both sides. Audi alteram partem is a maxim of which he 
never loses sight. One of Sir M. Hale's rules is, " That I suffer not myself to 
be prepossessed with any judgment at all till the whole business and both 
parties be heard." Another is, " That I never engage myself in the beginning 
of any cause, but reserve myself unprejudiced till the whole be heard." 

(p) If the cause be difficult, his diligence is the greater to sift it out. For though 
there be mention, Psalm xxxvii. 6, of righteousness as clear as the noon-day, 
yet God forbid that that innocency which is no clearer than twilight should be 
condemned. And seeing one's oath commands another's life, he searcheth 
whether malice did not command that oath ; yet when all is done, the judge 
may be deceived by false evidence. But blame not the hand of the dial, if it 
points at a false hour, when the fault is in the wheels of the clock which direct 
it, and are out of frame. — Fuller. 

Sir M. Hale, in his rules of things to be continually had in remembrance, 
says, " That I be wholly intent upon the business I am about, omitting all 
other cares and thoughts as unseasonable and interruptions." 

I remember that, when I was a young man, a prisoner was tried at the Old 
Bailey for a capital offence in secreting a letter. I forget the judge by whom 
he was tried, but Sir Soulden Lawrence was on the bench, and when the judge 
by whom he was tiied was about to charge the jury, Sir Soulden stated a point 
of law which had occurred to him in favour of the prisoner. This attention of Sir 
Soulden saved the man's life : his name was Pooley, Benjamin Pooley I think. 

Lord Eldon was very much in the habit of taking home the pleadings after 
the case had been argued. He told me that, in reading some pleadings, he had 
just discovered that the counsel had omitted to notice the only point upon which 
the case turned. He mentioned it, and the bar saw their error. He was one 
of the most, if not the most pains-taking judge, it is my firm conviction, that ever 
existed. 



CCI1L 



I'll LIFE OF BACON r . 



— He is impartial ; (b) never suffering any passion to 
interfere with the love of truth. — He hears what is 
spoken, not who speaks : (c) whether it be the sovereign, 
or a pauper ; (e) a friend, or a foe ; a favourite advocate, (f) 



(b) Hobbs says, " A judge should be able in judgments to divest him- 
self of all fear, anger, hatred, love, and compassion." 

When a j udge is capable of being influenced by any thing but law, or a 
cause may be recommended by any thing that is foreign to its own merits, 
we may venture to pronounce that the nation is hastening to ruin. 

Guardian, 99. 

Denys de Cortes, advocate of the parliament of Paris, and counsellor to 
the Chatelet, was so renowned for his integrity, that when a man who was 
condemned to death by the latter court, and intended to appeal to the 
parliament, heard that he was one of his judges, he submitted instantly to 
the sentence, saying, " He was convinced he merited death, since he was 
condemned by Denys de Cortes." 

A judge in the Isle of Man, on entering upon the functions of his office, 
takes the following oath : " By this book, and by the holy contents thereof, 
and by the wonderful works that God hath miraculously wrought in heaven 
above and in earth beneath in six days and seven nights, I do swear that I 
will without respect of favour or friendship, love or gain, consanguinity or 
affinity, envy or malice, execute the laws of this isle justly betwixt our 
sovereign lord the King and his subjects within this isle, and betwixt party 
and party as indifferently as the herring's back-bone doth lie in the midst 
of the fish." — Wood's account of the Isle of Man. 

(c) Parties come differently into court. It is the duty of a judge to 
make this difference as little as possible. D. Lord Eldon, Gourlay v. 
Duke of Somerset, Jan. 26, 1824. 

(e) By a decision in the House of Lords, which was delivered by Lord 
Rosslyn when Chancellor, a most virtuous clergyman was in a moment 
reduced from affluence to poverty. The moment the Chancellor had pro- 
nounced judgment, he walked from the woolsack to the bar of the house 
where the clergyman stood. He said, " As a judge I have decided against 
you : your virtues are not unknown to me. May I beg your acceptance 
of this presentation to a vacant living, which I happen, fortunately, to have 
at my disposal/' It was worth about £600 a year. 

(/) He has no favourites in the court. It is a strange thing to see, that 
the boldness of advocates should prevail with judges ; whereas they should 
imitate God in whose seat they sit; who represseth the presumptuous, and 
giveth grace to the modest. But it is more strange that judges should have 



judge. ccliii 

or an intelligent judge, (g) — He decides according to law; 
'jus dicere: non jus dare/ is his maxim, (h) — He delivers 
his judgment in public, (i) l palam atque astante corona.' 

" He discharges his duty to all persons. — To the suitors, 
by doing justice, and by endeavouring to satisfy them 
that justice is done: (a) — to the witnesses, (b) by patience, (c) 



noted favourites, which cannot but cause multiplication of fees, and suspicion 
of by-ways. 

Sir Matthew Hale, in his rules, says, '* Not to give any undue precedence to 
causes : not to recommend counsel." 

(g) His judgment is his own, uninfluenced by the opinions of his brethren. 
In England the junior judge is first to deliver his judgment. He should mix 
well the freedom of his own opinion with reverence for the opinion of his fellows. 
— Bacon. In forming his judgment he acts from the dictates of his own 
understanding, unbiassed by the opinions of his brother judges. 

Sir M. Hale would never suffer his opinion in any case to be known till he 
was obliged to declare it judicially ; and he concealed his opinion in great cases 
so carefully, that the rest of the judges in the same court could never perceive it. 
His reason was, because every judge ought to give sentence according to his 
own persuasion and conscience, and not to be swayed by any respect or defe- 
rence to another man's opinion ; and by his means it hath happened sometimes 
that when all the barons of the Exchequer had delivered their opinions, and 
agreed in their reasons and arguments, yet he coming to speak last, and differing 
in judgment from them, hath expressed himself with so much weight and 
solidity, that the barons have immediately retracted their votes and concurred 
with him. 

(h) Etenim optima est lex, quae minimum relinquit arbitrio judicis : 
optimus judex, qui minimum sibi. — Justitia Universalis, Aph. 94, vol. ix. 
p. 94. 

(i) Nee decreta exeant cum silentio ; sed judices sententise suae rationes 
adducant, idque palam, atque astante corona : ut quod ipsa potestate sit 
liberum, fama tamen et existimatione sit circumscriptum.— Justitia Uni- 
versalis, Aph. 38, vol ix. p. 92. 

(a) The duty of a judge is not only to do justice, but to satisfy the parties 
that, to the best of his ability, justice has been done. He may err in dis- 
covering what is just; but, in satisfying the parties of his anxiety to be 
just, he need never err. Cicero says of Brutus, " Etiam quos contra 
statuit asquos placentos que dimisil." 

He was not satisfied barely to give his judgment in causes, but did 

(6) See note (b), next page. (r) See note (c), next page. 



Ccliv LIFE OF BACON. 

kindness, and by encouragement : — to the jurors, by being a 
light to lead them to justice : — to the advocates, by hearing 

especially in all intricate ones, give such an account of the reasons that 
prevailed with him, that the counsel did not only acquiesce in his authority, 
but were so convinced by his reasons, that I have heard many profess that 
he brought them often to change their opinions; so that his giving of 
judgment was really a learned lecture upon that point of law; and which 
was yet more, the parties themselves, though interest does too generally 
corrupt the judgment, were generally satisfied with the justice of his 
decisions, even if they were made against them. — Hale's Life, p. 91. 

(fe) If any shall browbeat a pregnant witness, on purpose to make his proof 
miscarry, he checketh them, and helps the witness that labours in his delivery. 
On the other side he nips these lawyers who, under a pretence of kindness to 
lend a witness some words, give him new matter, yea clean contrary to what he 
intended. — Fuller. 

(c) He is patient and attentive in hearing the witnesses, though tedious. 
He may give a waking testimony who hath but a dreaming utterance ; and 
many country people must be impertinent before they can be pertinent, 
and cannot give evidence about a hen, but first they must begin with it in 
the egg. All which our judge is contented to hearken to. — Fuller. 

He meets not testimony half way, but stays till it come at him : he that 
proceeds on half evidence will not do quarter justice. Our judge will not 
go till he is lead. — Fuller. 

Let not the judge meet the cause half way, nor give occasion to the 
party to say his counsel or proofs were not heard. 

Patience is the lawyer's gift. — Lloyd's Life of Sir John Jeffrey, 223. 

" Prudens qui patiens," was Lord Burleigh's saying, and Sir Edward 
Coke's motto. Lord Burleigh is said to have carried matters prudently 
and patiently as became so great a statesman. — Lloyd. 

But nothing was more admirable in him than his patience : he did not 
affect the reputation of quickness and dispatch, by a hasty and captious 
hearing of counsel. He would bear with the meanest, and give every man 
his full scope, thinking it much better to lose time than patience. In sum- 
ming up an evidence to a jury, he would always require the bar to interrupt 
him if he did mistake, and to put him in mind of it, if he did forget the 
least circumstance ; some judges have been disturbed at this as a rudeness, 
which he always looked upon as a service and respect done to him. 

Hale's Life, p. 177. 

As his majesty was secured by his loyalty, so his subjects were by his 
patience, a virtue he carried with him to the bench, to attend each circum- 
stance of an evidence, each allegation of a plea, each plea in a cause ; 
hearing what was impertinent, and observing what was proper. His usual 



JUDGE. Cclv 

them patiently ; (d) correcting their defects, not suffering 
justice to be perverted by their ingenuity, and encou- 
raging their merits : — to the inferior officers by rewarding 
the virtuous, skilful in precedents, wary in proceeding, 
and understanding in the business of the court; and 
discountenancing the vicious, sowers of suits, disturbers 
of jurisdiction, impeders, by tricks and shifts, of the 
plain and direct course of justice, and bringing it into 
oblique lines and labyrinths : and the poller and exacter 
of fees,(y) who justifies the common resemblance of the 
courts to the bush, whereunto while the sheep flies for 
defence in weather, he is sure to lose part of his fleece: 
— to himself, by counteracting the tendency of his situa- 
tion to warp his character, and by proper use of times of 
recreation : — to his profession, by preserving the privi- 
leges of his office, and by improvement of the law: — 
and to society by advancing justice and good feeling, in 
the suppression of force and detection of fraud ; (k) in 

saying (as Serjeant Mandevil reports it), being, " We must have two souls, 
as two sieves : one for the bran, the other for the flour ; the one for the gross 
of a discourse, the other for the quintessence." — Lloyd's Life of Fitzjames. 

The errors of patience are on the one side slowness, on the other dispatch. 

(d) It is no grace to a judge first to find that which he might have heard 
in due time from the bar; or to shew quickness of conceit in cutting off 
evidence or counsel too short, or to prevent information by questions, 
though pertinent. 

(f) His hands, and the hands of his hands (I mean those about him) 
must be clean; and uncorrupt from gifts, from meddling in titles, and 
from serving of turns, be they of great ones or small ones. 

One of Sir M. Hale's rules is, " To charge my servants, 1st, not to 
interpose in any business whatsoever ; 2ndly, not to take more than their 
known fees. 

(k) Force the vice of strength : cunning the vice of weakness. The 
principal duty of a judge is to suppress force and fraud; whereof force is 
the more pernicious when it is open, and fraud when it is close and dis- 
guised. A judge ought to prepare his way to a just sentence, as God 
useth to prepare his way, by raising valleys and taking down hills : so 



cclvi LIFE OF BACON. 

readiness to hear the complaints of the distressed ; (I) in 
looking with pity upon those who have erred and strayed ; 
in courtesy; in discountenancing contentious suits ;(n) in 
attending to appearances, (o) esse et videri; in encouraging 
respect for the office ;(q) and by resigning in due time." (r) 



when there appeareth on either side an high hand, violent prosecution, 
cunning advantages taken, combination, power, great counsel, then is the 
virtue of a judge seen to make inequality equal, that he may plant his 
judgment as upon an even ground. " Qui fortitur emungit, elicit san- 
guinem ;" and where the wine-press is hard wrought, it yields a harsh wine 
that tastes of the grape-stone. 

(I) He should have ears always open compassionately to hear the com- 
plaints of widows, orphans, afflicted and forlorn people, who endure all 
the torments of the world to break through the press to manifest their 
injuries. A widow, whose son had been slain, and who was unable to 
attain justice, had the courage to accost the Emperor Trajan in the midst 
of the street, amidst an infinite number of people and the legions attending 
him to the war in Walachia, to which he was departing. He alighted 
from his horse, heard her, and ordered justice to be done. This is repre- 
sented on Trajan's pillar. 

(n) He should discountenance contentious suits. Contentious suits 
should be quickly ejected as the surfeit- of courts. 

De minimis non curat lex is a maxim of the law of England. 

Contentious suits ought to be spued out as the surfeit of courts. 

Bacon. 

He causeth that contentious suits should be spued out as the surfeits of 
courts. — Fuller. 

(o) Not ostentatiously, but from a knowledge that observers are influ- 
enced by appearance to look at the reality. 

(q) Sir Matthew Hale says, amongst the things to be continually had in 
remembrance, " That in the administration of justice I am entrusted for 
God, the King, and Country." 

He should encourage a sentiment of respect for the judicial office ; not 
for ostentation, but as a mode to advance a love of justice. 

The judge exalts not himself but his office. 

(r) He said he could not with a good conscience continue in it since he 
was no longer able to discharge the duty belonging to it. — Hale's Life, p. 99. 

Mr. Justice Heath used to say he would never resign, but would die 
" with harness on his back." 

He does not set in a cloud, but shines clear to the last. 



GORHAMBURY. Ccl 



Vll 



Iii his youth he had exerted himself to improve the 
gardens of Gray's Inn : (b) in gardens he always delighted,(c) 
thinking them conducive to the purest of human pleasures, 
and he now, as Chancellor, had the satisfaction to sign the 
patent for converting Lincoln's Inn Fields into walks, (d) 
extending almost to the wall where his faithful friend Ben 
Jonson had, when a boy, worked as a bricklayer, (e) 

For relaxation from his arduous occupations he was 
accustomed to retire to his magnificent and beautiful 
residence at Gorhambury, the dwelling place of his ances- 
tors, where, (f) " when his lordship arrived, St. Albans 
seemed as if. the court had been there, so nobly did he live. 
His servants had liveries with his crest: his watermen 
were more employed than even the King's." 

About half a mile from this noble mansion, of which the 
ruins yet remain, and within the bounds of Old Verulam, 
the Lord Chancellor built, at the expense of about £10,000, 
a most ingeniously contrived house, where, in the society 
of his philosophical friends, he escaped from the splendour 
of Chancellor, to study and meditation. " Here," says 
Aubrey, his lordship much meditated, his servant, Mr. 
Bushell, attending him with his pen and inkhorn to set 
down his present notions. Mr. Thomas Hobbes told me 

(6) Ante, p. xxiii. (c) See his Essays on Gardens, vol. i. p. 152. 

(d) To the Marquis of Buckingham. 
My very good Lord, — I send the commission for making Lincoln's Inn 
Fields into walks for his majesty's signature. It is without charge to his 
majesty. God preserve and prosper you. Your Lordship's most obliged 
friend and faithful servant, Fr. Verulam, Cane. 

Nov. 12, 1618. 
(e) His mother, after his father's death, married a bricklayer, and it is 
generally said, that he wrought some time with his father-in-law, and par- 
ticularly on the garden wall of Lincoln's Inn, next to Chancery Lane. 

Aubrey's account of Ben Jonson, vol. iii. p. 412. 
(/) Aubrey. 
VOL. XV. S 



Cclviii LIFE OF BACON. 

that his lordship would employ him often in this service, 
whilst he was there, and was better pleased with his 
minutes, or notes, set down by him, than by others who 
did not well understand his lordship. He told me that he 
was employed in translating part of the Essays, viz. three 
of them, one whereof was that of Greatness of Cities, the 
other two I have now forgot." (a) 

Such was the gorgeous splendour, such the union of 

action and contemplation in which he lived. 

Alienation About this period the King conferred upon him the 

York valuable farm of the Alienation Office, and he succeeded 

House. i n obtaining for his residence, York House, the place of 

his birth, and where his father had lived, when Lord 

Keeper in the reign of Elizabeth, (h) 

This may be considered the summit of this great man's 
worldly prosperity. He had been successively Solicitor 
and Attorney General, Privy Councillor, Lord Keeper, and 
Lord Chancellor, having had conferred upon him the dig- 
nities first of Knight, then of Baron of Verulam, and 
early in the next year, of Viscount St. Albans; but, above 
all, he was distinguished through Europe by a much 
prouder title, as the greatest of English Philosophers. 
His birth At York House, on the 22nd of January, 1620, he cele- 
A D Crated his sixtieth birthday, surrounded by his admirers 
1620. and friends, amongst whom was Ben Jonson, who com- 
posed in honour of the day a poem founded on the fiction 
of the poet's surprize upon his reaching York House, 

(a) See Aubrey, p. 228. I have an engraving of this house. 

(b) Besides other good gifts and bounties of the hand, which his majesty 
gave him, both out of the broad seal, and out of the Alienation Office, to 
the value in both of £1900 per annum, which, with his manor of Gorham- 
bury, and other lands and possessions near thereunto adjoining, amounting 
to a third part more, he retained to his dying day. — Rawley. See note 
A of this work. 



SIXTIETH BIRTHDAY. Cclix 

at the sight of the genius of the place performing some 
mystery, (a) Fortune is justly represented insecurely 
placed upon a wheel, whose slightest revolution may cause 
her downfall. It has been said that wailing sounds were 
heard before the destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem, 
and at last the rushing of mighty wings when the angel 
of the sanctuary departed. — Had the poet been a prophet, 
he would have described the good genius of the mansion, 
not exulting, but dejected, humbled, and about to depart 
for ever. 



(a) " Hail, happy genius of this ancient pile ! 
How comes it all things so about thee smile ? 
The fire, the wine, the men ? and in the midst 
Thou stand'st, as if some mystery thou didst. 
Pardon, I read it in thy face ; the day 
For whose return, and many, all these pray, 
And so do I. This is the sixtieth year 
Since Bacon, and thy lord was born, and here : 
Son to the grave wise Keeper of the Seal, 
Fame and foundation of the English weal. 
What then the father was, that since is he, 
Now with a title more to the degree ; 
England's High Chancellor, the destin'd heir, 
In his soft cradle, to his father's chair. 
Whose even thread the fates spin round and full 
Out of their choicest and their whitest wool. 
'Tis a brave cause of joy, let it be known, 
For 'twere a narrow gladness kept thine own. 
Give me a deep crown 'd bowl, that I may sing, 
In raising him, the wisdom of my king." 



CClx LIFE OF BACON. 



CHAPTER III. 

FROM THE PUBLICATION OF THE NOVUM ORGANUM 

TO HIS RETIREMENT FROM ACTIVE LIFE, 

October, 1620, to June, 1621. 

Glittering in the blaze of worldly splendour, and 
absorbed in worldly occupations, the Chancellor, now sixty 
years of age, could no longer delude himself with the 
hope of completing his favourite work, the great object 
of his life, upon which he had been engaged for thirty 
years, and had twelve times transcribed with his own 
hand. He resolved at once to abandon it, and publish the 
small fragment which he had composed, (a) For this act 



(«) " His book of Instauratio Magna (which, in his account was the 
chiefest of his works) was no slight imagination or fancy of his brain, but 
a settled and concocted notion ; the production of many years labour and 
travail. I myself have seen at the least twelve copies of the Instauration, 
revised year by year, one after another, and every year altered and amended 
in the frame thereof; till at last it came to that model in which it was 
committed to the press : as many living creatures do lick their young ones 
till they bring them to their strength of limbs." Rawley's Life. 

" There be two of your council, and one other bishop of this land 
(Dr. Andrews), that know I have been about some such work near thirty 
years, so as I made no haste. And the reason why I have published it 
now, specially being unperfect, is, to speak plainly, because I number my 
days, and would have it saved. There is another reason of my so doing, 
which is to try whether I can get help in one intended part of this work, 
namely, the compiling of a natural and experimental history, which must 
be the main foundation of a true and active philosophy." Letter to the 
King, see vol. ix. p. xiii, in preface. 



LITERATE EXPERIENCE. Cclxi 

of despair he assigned two reasons : — " Because I number 
my days, and would have it saved ;" and u to try whether 
I can get help in one intended part of this work, namely, 
the compiling of a Natural and Experimental History, 
which must be the foundation of a true and active phi- 
losophy." (a) — Such are the consequences of vain attempts 
to unite deep contemplation and unremitted action ! Such 
the consequences of forgetting our limited powers ; that 
we can reach only to our arm's length, and our voice be 
heard only till the next air is still ! (b) 

It will be remembered, that in the Advancement of 
Learning, he separates the subject of the human mind (c) 
snto 



r l. The Understanding. 



2. The Will 



"1. Invention. 

2. Judgment, 

3. Memory. 
.4. Tradition. 



Under the head of Invention, he says, " The invention 
of sciences, I purpose, if God give me leave, hereafter to 
propound, having digested it into two parts ; whereof the 
one I term experientia literata, and the other, interpretatio 
natures,: the former being but a degree and rudiment of 
the latter. But I will not dwell too long, nor speak too 
great upon a promise." — This promise he, however, lived 
partly to realize. 

In the year 1623, he completed his tract upon Literate 



(a) See vol. xiv. p. 4. 

(6) See the fable of Memnon, in the Wisdom of the Ancients, vol. iii. 
p. 40. 

(c) Ante, p. cxii. 



Cclxii LIFE OF BACON. 

Experience, (a) in which, after having explained that our 
inventions, instead of resulting from reason and foresight, 
had ever originated in accident: that "we are more be- 
holden to a wild goat for surgery : to a nightingale for 
modulations of music : to the ibis for some part of physic : 
to a pot-lid that flew open for artillery: in a word, to 
chance rather than to logic : so that it is no marvel that 
the Egyptians had their temples full of the idols of brutes ; 
but almost empty of the idols of men :" he divides this 
art of Discovery into two parts : " For either the indi- 
cation is made from experiments to experiments, or from 
experiments to axioms, which may likewise design new 
experiments ; whereof the former we will term Experientia 
Liter at a ; the latter, Interpretatio Natura, or Novum 
Organum : as a man may go on his way after a three-fold 
manner, either when himself feels out his way in the dark ; 
or, being weak-sighted, is led by the hand of another ; or 
else when he directs his footing by a light. So when a 
man essays all kind of experiments without sequence or 
method, that is a mere palpation; but when he proceeds 
by direction and order in experiments, it is as if he were 
led by the hand ; and this is it which we understand by 
Literate Experience ; for the light itself, which is the third 
way, is to be derived from the interpretation of nature, or 
the New Organ ." (b) 
Literate He then proceeds to explain his doctrine of " Literate 

experience. Experience," or the science of making experiments. The 
hunting of Pan. (c) 

In this interesting inquiry the miraculous vigilance of 
this extraordinary man may, possibly, be more apparent 



(a) De Augmentis, L. v. vol. viii. p. 265. 

(b) De Aug. vol. viii. p. 265. 

(c) Fable of Pan. See Wisdom of Ancients, vol. hi. p. 11. 



LITERATE EXPERIENCE. 



ccl 



Xlll 



than in his more abstruse works. An outline of it is 
subjoined, (a) 



(a) The art of experimenting is, 




ft. 


By repetition. 




"1. Production.-! 2. 


By extension. 




u 


By compulsion. 




2. Inversion. 






fl. 


Of the matter. 




3. Variation. J 2. 


Of the efficient. 




-1. Simple. - 


l«. 


Of the quantity. 








-1. 


From nature. 

1. To nature. 

2. To art. 




-1. Systematic. . 




A. Translation. - 


2. 


From art. 
1. To a different art. 










2. To a part of the 










same art. 


: 






3. 


From experiment to 
experiment. 




*-2 Compound. 






2. Chance. 











A few moments consideration of each of these subjects 
will not be lost. 

Production is experimenting upon the result of the 
experiment, and is either, 1st, by Repetition, continuing the 
experiment upon the result of the experiment; as Newton, 
who, after having separated light into seven rays, proceeded 
to separate each distinct pencil of rays : or, 2ndly, by 
Extension, or urging the experiment to a greater subtlety, 
as in the memory being helped by images and pictures 
of persons: may it not also be helped by imaging their 
gestures and habits ? or, 3rdly, by Compulsion, or trying an 
experiment till its virtue is annihilated : not merely hunting 
the game, but killing it; as burning or macerating a load- 
stone, or dissolving iron till the attraction between the 
iron and the loadstone is gone. 

Inversion is trying the contrary to that which is mani- 
fested by the experiment : as in heating the end of a small 
bar of iron, and placing the heated end downwards, and 



Cclx'lV LIFE OF BACON. 

The Novum Organum is the next subject of consider- 
ation. It thus opens : 



your hand on the top, it will presently burn the hand. 
Invert the iron, and place the hand on the ground, to 
ascertain whether heat is produced as rapidly by descent 
as by ascent. 

Variation is either of the matter, as the trying to 
make paper of woollen, as well as of linen; or of the 
efficient, as by trying if amber and jet, which when rubbed, 
will attract straw, will have the same effect if warmed at 
the fire; or of the quantity, like iEsop's huswife, who 
thought that by doubling her measure of barley, her hen 
would daily lay her two eggs. 

Translation is either from nature to nature, as Newton 
translating the force of gravity upon the earth to the celes- 
tial bodies; or from nature to art, as the manner of distilling 
might be taken from showers or dew, or from that homely 
experiment of drops adhering to covers put upon pots of 
boiling water; or from art to a different art, as by trans- 
ferring the invention of spectacles, to help a weak sight, to 
an instrument fastened to the ear, to help the deaf; or to 
a different part of the same art : as, if opiates repress the 
spirits in diseases, may they not retard the consumption 
of the spirits so as to prolong life ; or from experiment to 
experiment : as upon flesh putrefying sooner in some cellars 
than in others, by considering whether this may not assist 
in finding good or bad air for habitations. 

Such are the modes of experimenting by translation,* 

* They may be thus exhibited : 

.„ t^ . S To nature. 

1. From nature. J Tq ^ 

-r, 5 To a different art. 

I. from art. j Tq a different part of the same art> 

3. From experiment to experiment. 



NOVUM ORGANUM. Cclxv 

FRANCISCUS 

DE VERULAMIO 

SIC COGITAVIT.(a) 

His despair of the possibility of completing his important 
work, of which his Novum Organum was only a portion, 
appears at the very entrance of the volume, which, instead 
of being confined to the Novum Organum, exhibits an 
outline, and only an outline of the whole of his intended 
labours. 



open to all men who will awake and perpetually fix their 
eyes, one while on the nature of things, another on the 
application of them to the use and service of mankind. 

Copulation of experiments is trying the efficacy of 
united experiments, which, when separate, produce the 
same effect : as, by pulling off the more early buds when 
they are newly knotted, or by laying the roots bare 
until the spring, late roses will be produced. Will not 
the germination be more delayed by a union of these 
experiments ? 

Chances of an experiment, or the trying a conclusion 
not for that any reason, or other experiment, induceth you 
to it, but only because the like was never attempted 
before : an irrational, and, as it were, a passionate manner 
of experimenting ; but yet the wonders of nature lie out of 
the high road and beaten paths, so as the very absurdity 
of an attempt may sometimes be prosperous. 

Such is the nature of his tract entitled " Literate Expe- 
rience." 

(a) Vol. ix. p. 145, 6, 7. Cum autem incertus esset, quando haec 
alicui posthac in mentem ventura sint; eo potissimum usus argumento, 
quod neminem hactenus invenit, qui ad similes cogitationes animum 
applicuerit; decrevit prima quaeque, quae perficere licuit, in publicum 
edere. Neque haec festinatio ambitiosa fuit, sed sollicita; ut si quid illi 



Cclxvi LIFE OF BACON. 

After his dedication to the King, (a) he, according to 
his wonted mode, clears the way by a review of the 
state of learning, which, he says, is neither prosperous nor 
advanced, but, being barren in effects, fruitful in questions, 
slow and languid in its improvement, exhibiting in its 
generality the counterfeit of perfection, ill filled up in its 
details, popular in its choice, suspected by its very pro- 
moters, and therefore countenanced with artifices, (b) it is 
necessary that an entirely different way from any known 
by our predecessors must be opened to the human under- 
standing, and different helps be obtained, in order that 
the mind may exercise its jurisdiction over the nature of 
things. 

The intended work is then separated into six parts : 



humanitus accideret, exstaret tamen designatio qusedam, ac destinatio rei 
quam ammo complexus est ; utque exstaret simul signum aliquod honestse 
suse et propensae in generis humani commoda voluntatis. Certe aliam 
quamcunque ambitionem inferiorem duxit re, quam prse manibus habuit. 
Aut enim hoc quod agitur nihil est ; aut tantum, ut merito ipso contentum 
esse debeat, nee fructum extra quserere. 

FRANCIS OF VERULAM 

THOUGHT THUS. 

Uncertain, however, whether these reflections would ever hereafter 
suggest themselves to another, and particularly having observed that he 
has never yet met with any person disposed to apply his mind to similar 
meditations, he determined to publish whatsoever he had first time to 
conclude. Nor is this the haste of ambition, but of his anxiety, that if the 
common lot of mankind should befall him, some sketch and determination 
of the matter his mind had embraced might be extant, as well as an earnest 
of his will being honourably bent upon promoting the advantage of man- 
kind. He assuredly looked upon any other ambition as beneath the matter 
he had undertaken ; for that which is here treated of is either nothing, or it 
is so great that he ought to be satisfied with its own worth, and seek no 
other return. 

(a) See vol. ix. p. 150. 

(6) See vol. ix. from p. 5. 



NOVUM ORGANUM. Cclxvii 

1. Divisions of the Sciences. 

2. Novum Organum; or, Precepts for the Interpretation 

of Nature. 

3. Phenomena of the Universe ; or, Natural and Experi- 

mental History on which to found Philosophy. 

4. Scale of the Understanding. 

5. Precursors or Anticipations of the Second Philosophy. 

6. Sound Philosophy, or Active Science. 

And with respect to each of these parts he explains his 
intentions. 

As to the first, or The Division of the Sciences, Division 

he, in 1605, had exhibited an outline in the Advancement 2 • t e 

9 \ Sciences. 

of Learning, (a) and lived nearly (b) to complete it in the 
year 1623. (c) In this treatise he describes the cultivated 
parts of the intellectual world and the desarts;(<i) not to 
measure out regions, as augurs for divination, but as 
generals to invade for conquest. 

The Novum Organum is a treatise upon the conduct The 
of the understanding in the systematic discovery of truth, ^ im 
or the art of invention by a New Organ : (e) as, in inquiring 
into any nature, the hydrophobia, for instance, or the 
attraction of the magnet, the Novum Organum explains 
a mode of proceeding by which its nature and laws may 
with certainty be found. 

It having been Bacon's favourite doctrine, that important 



(a) See vol. viii. See ante, p. cxxxv. 

(6) Not entirely, see the De Aug. vol. ix. p. 83, where his Justitia 
Universalis is unfinished. 

(c) Vol. viii. (d) Ante, p. cxxi. 

(e) The object of the second part is the doctrine touching a better and 
more perfect use of reasoning in the investigation of things, and the true 
helps of the understanding ; that it may by this means be raised, as far as 
our human and mortal nature will admit, and be enlarged in its powers so 
as to master the arduous and obscure secrets of nature. 



CClxvili LIFE OF BACON. 

truths are often best discovered in small and familiar in- 
stances, (a) as the nature of a commonwealth, in a family 

(a) Experiments familiar and vulgar, to the interpretation of nature do 
as much, if not more, conduce than experiments of a higher quality. 
Certainly this may be averred for truth, that they be not the highest 
instances, that give the best and surest information. This is not unaptly 
expressed in the tale, so common, of the philosopher, who while he gazed 
upward to the stars fell into the water; for if he had looked down, he 
might have seen the stars in the water, but looking up to heaven he could 
not see the water in the stars. In like manner, it often comes to pass that 
small and mean things conduce more to the discovery of great matters than 
great things to the discovery of small matters ; and therefore Aristotle notes 
well, that the nature of every thing is best seen in its smallest portions. 
For that cause he inquires the nature of a commonwealth, first, in a family 
and the simple conjugations of society; man and wife; parents and chil- 
dren; master and servant, which are in every cottage. So likewise the 
nature of this great city of the world, and the policy thereof, must be 
sought in every first concordances and least portions of things. So we see 
that secret of nature (esteemed one of the great mysteries) of the turning of 
iron touched with a loadstone towards the poles, was found out in needles 
of iron, not in bars of iron. 

Consider obvious and common things. — Newton retired from the Uni- 
versity to avoid the plague, which raged with great violence. Sitting under 
a tree in an orchard, an apple fell upon his head. — As there is motion, 
there must be a force which produces it. Is this force of gravity confined 
to the surface of the earth, or does it extend to heavenly bodies ? 

" See," Bacon says, " the little cloud upon glass or blades of swords, 
and mark well the discharge of that cloud, and you shall perceive that it 
ever breaks up first in the skirts, and last in the midst. May we not learn 
from this the force of union, even in the least quantities and weakest 
bodies, how much it conduceth to preservation of the present form, and 
the resisting of the new ? In like manner, icicles if there be water to 
follow them, lengthen themselves out in a very slender thread, to prevent a 
discontinuity of the water; but if there be not a sufficient quantity to 
follow, the water then falls in round drops, which is the figure that best 
supports it against discontinuation ; and at the very instant when the thread 
of water ends, and the falling in drops begins, the water recoils upwards to 
avoid being discontinued. So in metals, which are fluid upon fusion, 
though a little tenacious, some of the mettled mass frequently springs up 
in drops, and sticks in that form to the sides of the crucible. There is a 
like instance in the looking-glasses, commonly made of spittle by children, 
in a loop of rush or whalebone, where we find a constant pellicle of 
water." 



ttOVUM ORGANUM. CclxiX 

and the simple conjugations of society, man and wife, 
parents and children, master and servant, which are in 
every cottage ; and as he had early taught that all truths, 
however divisible as lines and veins, (a) are not separable 
as sections and separations, but partake of one common 
essence, which, like the drops of rain, fall separately into 
the river, mix themselves at once with the stream, and 
strengthen the general current, it may seem extraordinary 
that it should not have occurred to him that the mode 
to discover any truth might, possibly, be seen by the 
proceedings in a court of justice, where the immediate 
and dearest interests of men being concerned, and great 
intellect exerted, it is natural to suppose that the best 
mode of invention would be adopted. 

In a well constituted court of justice the Judge is with- 
out partiality. He hears the evidence on both sides, and 
the reasoning of the opposite advocates. He then forms 
his judgment. This is the mode adopted by Bacon in 
the Novum Organum for the discovery of all truths. He 
endeavours to make the Philosopher in his study proceed 
as a Judge in his court. 

For this purpose his work is divisible into three parts : 
1st. The removal of prejudice, or the destruction of idols, 
or modes by which the judgment is warped from the truth. 
2ndly. By considering facts on both sides; as if the 
inquiry be into the nature of heat, by considering all the 
affirmative and negative instances of heat, 

Affirmative Table. Negative Table. 



The Sun's direct rays. 
Blood of Terrestrial Animals. 
Living Animals. 



The Moon's rays. 
Blood of Fish. 
Dead Animals. 
&c. 



(a) Adv. of Learning, vol. ii. p. 153. De Aug. vol. viii. p. 205. 



Cclxx LIFE OF BACON. 

3rdly. By explaining the mode in which the facts pre- 
sented to the senses ought by certain rules to be examined. 
As the commander of an army, before he commences an 
attack, considers the strength and number of his troops, 
both regular and allies; the spirit by which they are 
animated, whether they are the lion, or the sheep in the 
lion's skin; the power of the enemy to which he is 
opposed ; their walled towns, their stored arsenals and 
armouries, their horses and chariots of war, elephants, 
ordnance and artillery, and their races of men ; and then 
in what mode he shall commence his attack and proceed 
in the battle : so, before man directs his strength against 
nature, and endeavours to take her high towers and dis- 
mantle her fortified holds, and thus enlarge the borders of 
his dominion, (a) he ought duly to estimate, 

1st. His powers natural and artificial for the discovery 

of truth. 
2nd. His different motives for the exercise of his powers. 
3rd. The obstacles to which he is opposed ; and, 
4th. The mode in which he can exert his powers with 

most efficacy, or the Art of Invention. 

Of these four requisites, therefore, a perfect work upon 
the conduct of the understanding ought, as it seems, to 
consist: but the Novum Organum is not thus treated. 
To system Bacon was not attached : (b) for u As young 



(a) See Bacon, in the beginning of his tract on the Philosophy of Man. 
See also Diderot de l'lnterpr^tation de la Nature, where he says, " que 
tous nos efforts se trouvassent reunis et diriges en raeme temps contre 
la resistance de la nature." There is the same expression in South 's 
sermon on Human Perfection, viz. " thereby extending the bounds of 
apprehension and enlarging the territories of reason." 

(6) See Advancement of Learning, vol. ii. p. 203. See also note D, 
vol. ii. p. 384. 



NOVUM ORGANUM. CClxxi 

men, when they knit and shape perfectly, do seldom 
grow to a farther stature, so knowledge, while it is in 
aphorisms and observations, it is in growth ; but when it 
once is comprehended in exact methods, it may perchance 
be farther polished and illustrated, and accommodated for 
use and practice ; but it increaseth no more in bulk and 
substance, (a) 

Instead of explaining our different powers, our Senses, Our 
our Imagination, our Reaso?i, there are in the Novum P owers - 
Organum only some scattered observations upon the 
defects of the senses ; — upon the different causes or idols 
by which the judgment is always liable to be warped, and 
some suggestions as to the artificial helps to our natural 
powers in exploring the truths which are exhibited to 
the senses. 

With respect to the defects of the senses, he says that Defects of 
things escape their cognizance by seven modes : (b) 

1st. From distance ; which is remedied by substitutes, 

as beacons, bells, telegraphs, &c. 
2nd. By the interception of interposing bodies ; which is 

remedied by attention to outward or visible signs, 

as the internal state of the body by the pulse, &c. 
3rd. By the unfitness of the body : or, 
4th. Its insufficiency in quantity to impress the sense, 

as the air and the vital spirit, which is imperceptible 

by sight or touch, 
5th. From the insufficiency of time to actuate the sense, 

either when the motion is too slow, as in the hand 

of a clock or the growth of grass, or too rapid, as 

a bullet passing through the air. 

(«) See Advancement of Learning, vol. ii. p. 48. 

(b) See what he terms citing Instances, vol. ix. p. 305. 



Cclxxii LIFE OF BACON. 

6th. From the percussion of the body being too powerful 
for the sense, as in looking at the mid-day sun ; 
which is remedied by removing the object from the 
sense ; or by diminishing its force by the interpo- 
sition of a medium, as smoking tobacco through 
water ; or by reflection, as the sun's rays in a 
mirror or basin of water : and — 

7th. Because the sense is pre-occupied by another object, 
as by the use of perfumes. 

Idols. The defects of the judgment he investigates in a more 

laborious inquiry. " There are," he says, " certain predis- 
positions which beset the mind of man; certain idols 
which are constantly operating upon the mind and warping 
it from the truth; for the mind of man, drawn over and 
clouded with the sable pavilion of the body, is so far from 
being like a smooth equal and clear glass, which might 
sincerely take and reflect the beams of things according to 
their true incidence, that it is rather like an enchanted 
glass, full of superstitions, apparitions, and impostures; 
which idols are of such a pernicious nature, that, if they 
once take root in the mind, they will so possess it that 
truth can hardly find entrance ; and, even should it enter, 
they will again rise up, choke, and destroy it." (a) 
Division of These idols are of two sorts: 1st, common to all men, 
Idols. therefore called Idols of the Tribe, including the defects of 
words, called Idols of the Market; 2nd, peculiar to pecu- 
liar individuals, either from their original conformation, or 
from their education and pursuits in life, called Idols of 



(a) Locke on the conduct of the Understanding says, " Men do not look 
through glasses which represent images in their true forms and colours ; 
for they put coloured spectacles before their eyes, and look on things 
through false glasses, and then think themselves excused in following the 
false appearances -which they themselves put upon them." 



IDOLS. 



cclxxiii 



the Den, including the errors from particular opinions, 
called Idols of the Theatre. So that his doctrine of idols 
may be thus exhibited : 

1. Of the Tribe.— Of the Market. 

2. Of the Den. — Of the Theatre. 

The Idols of the tribe, or warps to the judgment by which Idols of 
all mankind swerve from the truth, are of two classes: 
1st. When man is under the influence of a passion more 
powerful than the love of truth, as worldly interest, crying, 
" Great is Diana of the Ephesians :" or, 2ndly, when, 
under the influence of the love of truth, he, like every lover, 
is hurried, without due and cautious inquiry, by the hope 
of possessing the object of his affections ; which manifests 
itself either in hasty assent, or hasty generalization, the 
parents of credulity : — in tenacity in retaining opinions, the 
parent of prejudice : — in abandoning universality, the parent 
of feeble inquiry: {a) — or in indulging in subtleties and 
refinements and endless inquiry, the parent of vain specu- 
lations, spinning out of itself cobwebs of learning, admirable 
for their fineness of texture, but of no substance or profit, (b) 



(b) 



n. 



(a) Does not this originate in ignorance of the connexion 
between all truths, as the quavering upon a stop in music 
gives the same delight to the ear that the playing of light 
upon the water, or the sparkling of a diamond, gives to 
the eye ? 

1. Worldly interest. 

2. Uniformity. 

3. Arrangement. 
14. Simplicity, &c. &c. 

rl rr , /Assent. 

1. nasty <[ Generalization# 

2. Tenacity. 

3. Abandoning universality. 

4. Endless inquiry, 8tc. &c. 

VOL. XV. t 



Passions more 
powerful than 
love of truth. 



J2. Love of truth. 



Cclxxiv LIFE OF BACON. 

Idols of the As men associate by discourse, and words are imposed 
m et ' according to the capacity of the vulgar, a false and im- 
proper imposition of words unavoidably possesses the 
understanding, leading men away to idle controversies and 
subtleties, irremediable by definitions, which, consisting of 
words, shoot back, like the Tartar's bow, upon the judg- 
ment from whence they came, 

These defects of words, or Idols of the Market, are 
either names of non-existences, as the primum mobile, the 
element of fire, &c. ; or confused names of existences, as 
beauty, virtue, &c. ; which, from the subtlety of nature 
being infinite and of words finite, must always exist. 
Words tell the minutes, but not the seconds. When we 
attempt to reach heaven, we are stopped by the confusion 
of languages. 

Idols of The Idols of the Den, or attachment by particular 

individuals to particular opinions, he thus explains : 
" We every one of us have our particular den or cavern 
which refracts and corrupts the light of nature; either 
because every man has his respective temper, education, 
acquaintance, course of reading and authorities ; or from 
the difference of impressions, as they happen in a mind 
prejudiced or prepossessed, or in one that is calm and 
equal. Of which defects Plato's cave is an excellent 
emblem : for certainly if a man were continued from his 
childhood to mature age in a grottoe or dark and subter- 
raneous cave, and then should come suddenly abroad, and 
should behold the stately canopy of heaven and the furni- 
ture of the world, without doubt he would have many 
strange and absurd imaginations come into his mind and 
people his brain. So in like manner we live in the view of 
heaven, yet our spirits are inclosed in the caves of our 
bodies, complexions, and customs, which must needs 
minister unto us infinite images of error and vain opinions, 



IDOLS. Ccl 



XXV 



if they do seldom and for so short a time appear above 
ground out of their holes, and do not continually live 
under the contemplation of nature as in the open air." 
Of these Idols of the Den, the attachment of professional 
men, divines, lawyers, politicians, &c. to their respective 
sciences, are glaring instances, (a) 



(a) Medical Antipathy. — Dr. William Hunter, in his introduction to 
his anatomical lectures, after having referred to the improvements in 
anatomy by Malpighi and other Italians, says, the senior professors were 
inflamed to such a pitch, that they endeavoured to pass a law whereby 
every graduate should be obliged to take the following additional clause to 
his solemn oath on taking his degree : " You shall likewise swear that you 
will preserve and defend the doctrine taught in the University of Bononia, 
viz. that of Hippocrates, Aristotle, and Galen, which has now been 
approved of for so many ages, and that you will not permit their principles 
and conclusions to be overturned by any person, as far as in you lies." 
" Pro toto tui posse," is the expression. " But," says our author, " this 
was dropt, and the philosophizing with freedom remains to this day." 

Antipathy of Divines and Politicians. — The antipathy of these profes- 
sions is explained by Lord Bacon, in the opening of his treatise " De 
Augmentis," to which I must content myself in this place by referring. 

Antipathy of Sailors. — Soon after the invention of steam-boats, I hap- 
pened to be on the walk in Greenwich hospital, opposite to the river, 
when the Margate steam-boat was passing. " I hate them steam-boats," 
said one of the Greenwich pensioners, walking away in great dudgeon, 
" they are clean contrary to nature." 

Antipathy of Lawyers. — The lawyers, and particularly St. Paul, were 
the most violent opposers of Christianity. The civilians, upon being 
taunted by the common lawyers with the cruelty of the rack, answered, 
" non ex ssevitia, sed ex bonitate talia faciunt homines." — In Utopia, 
when the archbishop objected to the punishment of death for theft, the 
counsellor answers, " that the law can never be altered without endangering 
the whole nation." 

Pastoret, a French judge, who wrote on penal lays, " Je voudrois 
pouvoir defendre l'humanite sans accuser notre legislation ; mais qu'est la 
loi positive aupres des droits immuables de la justice et de la nature? 
Des magistrats merne, je ne me le dissimule point, sont opposes aux 
reformes desires par la nation entiere. Nourris dans une connoissance 
intime de la jurisprudence penale, ayant pour elle l'attachement si commun 
pour des idees anciennes, ils y sont encore attaches par un sentiment plus 



d 



CCJXXVl 



LIFE OF BACON. 



Idols of the 
Theatre. 



Destruc- 
tion of 
Idols. 



Idols of the Theatre, or depraved theories, are, of course, 
infinite and inveterate ; appearing in that numerous litter 
of strange, senseless, absurd opinions, which crawl about 
the world to the disgrace of reason and the wretchedness 
of mankind. 

Upon the destruction of these Idols, Bacon is unceasing 
in his exhortations. " They must," he says, " by the 
lover of truth be solemnly and for ever renounced, that the 
understanding may be purged and cleansed ; for the king- 



noble. Leur vertu a souvent adouci la severite de la loi, et elle leur rend 
cheres des maximes qu'ils rendent meilleurs, en leur communiquant l'im- 
pression d'une ame tendre et vertueuse. Ce n'est pas eux qu'on doit 
craindre : ils finissent par etre justes. Mais ce qu'on doit redoubter, parce 
qu'elle ne sait ni pardonner ni se corriger, c'est la mediocrite routiniere, 
toujours prete a accabler de reproches ceux qui ont le courage d'elever 
leurs pensees et leurs observations au-dessus du niveau auquel elle est 
condamnee. Ce sont des novateurs, s'ecrie-t-elle ; c'est une innovation, 
rephtent, avec un souris meprisant, les producteurs des idees anciennes. 
Tout projet de reforme est a leurs yeux l'effet de l'ignorance ou du delire, 
et les plus compatissans sont ceux qui daignent vous plaindre de ce qu'ils 
appellent l'egarement de votre raison. L'admiration pour ce qui est, pour 
ce qui fut, succede bientot au mepris pour ce qu'on propose. Ils se 
croient plus sages que nos peres, ajoue-t-on; et avec ce mot, tout paroit 
decide." 

During a debate in the House of Lords, June 13, 1827, Lord Tenterden 
is reported to have said, that it was fortunate that the subject (the amend- 
ment of the laws) had been taken up by a gentleman of enlarged mind 
(Mr. Peel), who had not been bred to the law, for those who were, were 
rendered dull by habit to many of its defects. 

And Lord Bacon says, " Qui de legibus scripserunt, omnes vel tanquam 
philosophi vel tanquam jurisconsulti argumentum illud tractaverunt. Atque 
philosophi proponunt multa, dictu pulcra, sed ab usu remota. Juriscon- 
sulti autem suae quisque patriae legum (vel etiam Romanorum aut ponti- 
ficiarum) placitis obnoxii et addicti, judicio sincero non utuntur: sed 
tanquam e vinculis sermonicentur. Certe cognitio ista ad viros civiles 
proprie spectat qui optime norunt quid ferat societas humana ; quid salus 
populi : quid aequitas naturalis : quid gentium mores : quid rerum publi- 
carum formae diversae : ideoque possint de legibus ex principiis et proe- 
ceptis, tam aequitatis naturalis quam politices, decernere." 



idols. cclxxvii 

dom of man, which is founded in the sciences, can scarce 
be entered otherwise than the Kingdom of God, that is, in 
the condition of little children :" and, with an earnestness 
not often found in his works, he adds, " If we have any 
humility towards the Creator; if we have any reverence 
and esteem of his works; if we have any charity towards 
men, or any desire of relieving their miseries and neces- 
sities ; if we have any love for natural truths ; any aversion 
to darkness, any desire of purifying the understanding, 
we must destroy these idols, which have led experience 
captive, and childishly triumphed over the works of God; 
and now at length condescend, with due submission and 
veneration, to approach and peruse the volume of the 
creation; dweU some time upon it, and bringing to the 
work a mind well purged of opinions, idols, and false 
notions, converse familiarly therein. This volume is the 
language which has gone out to all the ends of the earth, 
unaffected by the confusion of Babel ; this is the language 
that men should thoroughly learn, and not disdain to have 
its alphabet perpetually in their hands ; and in the inter- 
pretation of this language they should spare no pains, but 
strenuously proceed, persevere, and dwell upon it to the 
last." 

Such is a faint outline of Bacon's celebrated doctrine of 
Idols, which has sometimes been supposed to be the most 
important of all his works, and to expose the cause of all 
the errors by which man is misled. 

Upon the motives by which the lover of truth, seeking Our 
nature with all her fruits about her, can alone be actuated, motlves - 
and which he has explained in other parts of his works, {a) 
he, in the Novum Organum, contents himself with saying, 
" We would in general admonish all to consider the true 

(a) See ante, p. x. 



ccl 



XXV111 



LIFE OF BACON. 



ends of knowledge, and not to seek it for the gratification 
of their minds, or for disputation, or that they may despise 
others, or for emolument, or fame, or power, or such low 
objects, but for its intrinsic merit and the purposes of 
life." (a) 
Obstacles. The obstacles to the acquisition of knowledge are : 



Want of 
time. 



Want of 
means. 



f 1. Worldly occupation. 
fl. Want of time, j 2 . Sickness. 

1 and ^3. Shortness of life. 

^2. Want of means. 



Upon the obstacles from want of time, more imaginary 
than real, if time is not wasted in frivolous pursuits, in 
sensuality or in sleep, in misapplication of times of recre- 
ation, or in idle curiosity, the Novum Organum contains 
but one casual, consolatory observation : " We judge 
also that mankind may conceive some hopes from our 
example, which we offer, not by way of ostentation, but 
because it may be useful." (b) 

The obstacles to the acquisition of knowledge from want 
of means he through life deeply felt, and he never omitted 
an opportunity earnestly to express his hope that it would 
be diminished or destroyed by such a collection of natural 
history as would shew the world, not as man has made 
it, not as it exists only in imagination, but as it really 
exists, as God has made it. (c) 



{a) See vol. v. p. 12. (b) See ante, c. ix. 

(c) In the Advancement of Learning (see vol. ii. p. 95), published in 
1605, he notes, as one of the defects of universities, " the want of collec- 
tions of natural history, and of instruments to assist in experiments, 
whether appertaining to Vulcan or Dsedalus, furnace or engine, without 
which there cannot be any main proficience in the disclosing of nature." 
In his fable of Pan, in the Wisdom of the Ancients (vol. iii. p. 11), he 
explains the exquisite description of nature by the ancients, under the 



OBSTACLES TO KNOWLEDGE. Cclxxix 

Anxious to lay the true foundation of philosophy, he, in 
the Novum Organum, availed himself of the power with 
which he was entrusted, to induce the King to form such 
a collection of natural history as he had measured out in 



person of Pan ; where, amidst great ingenuity and much beauty, he says, 
" He is pourtrayed by the ancients with horns on his head, to reach to 
heaven, because horns are broad at the root and sharp at the ends, the 
nature of all things being like a pyramis, sharp at the top. For individual 
or singular things being infinite are first collected into species, which are 
many also ; then from species into generals, and from generals (by ascend- 
ing) are contracted into things or notions more general ; so that at length 
nature may seem to be contracted into an unity. Neither is it to be 
wondered at, that Pan toucheth heaven with his horns, seeing the height 
of nature or universal ideas do in some sort pertain to things divine, and 
there is a ready and short passage from metaphysic to natural theology/' 
A sentiment which he repeated in 1623, in the treatise De Augmentis, 
saying, " The sciences are the pyramids supported by history and expe- 
rience, as their only and true basis; and so the basis of natural philosophy 
is natural history; the stage next the basis is physic; the stage next the 
vertical point is metaphysic : as for the cone and vertical point itself (opus 
quod operatur Deus a, principio usque ad finem; the summary law of 
nature), we do justly doubt, whether man's inquiry can attain unto it." — 
See vol. viii. p. 90 and 189. He therefore, as a portion of the third part 
of his Instauration (see Baconiana, 41), resolved himself to commence this 
arduous undertaking, in a work entitled Sylva Sylvarum, published years 
after his death, by his faithful friend and secretary, Dr. Ravvley, who says, 
" I have heard his lordship speak complainingly, that his lordship, who 
thinketh he deserveth to be an architect in this building, should be forced 
to be a workman and a labourer, and to dig the clay and burn the brick ; 
and more than that, according to the hard condition of the Israelites at the 
latter end, to gather the straw and stubble over all the fields, to bum the 
bricks withal. For he knoweth that except he do it, nothing will be done : 
men are so set to despise the means of their own good." And, in his 
New Atlantis (vol. ii. p. 322), he preferred assisting in such a collection, as 
more important than an inquiry into the principles of government and 
legislation ; and he pointed out of what it ought to consist, and the modes 
by which the obstacles to the acquisition of knowledge, from the expense 
attendant upon such collections, might be diminished by public lectures 
and libraries, and by collections and instruments in public institutions. — 
See ante, p. xiii. 



ccl 



XXX LIFE OF BACON. 



his mind, and such as really ought to be procured; "a 
great and royal work, requiring the purse of a prince and 
the assistance of a people." He therefore, in the dedication, 
and in his presentation letter, urged the King to imitate 
Solomon, by procuring the compilation and completion of 
such a natural and experimental history as should be 
serviceable for raising the superstructure of philosophy : 
that, at length, after so many ages, philosophy and the 
sciences may no longer be unsettled and speculative, but 
fixed on the solid foundation of a varied and well considered 
experience : (a) and in his reply to the King's acknow- 
ledgment of the receipt of the Novum Organum, he 
repeats his hope that the King will aid him in employing 
the community in collecting a natural and experimental 
history, as " basis totius negotii ;" for who can tell, now 
this mine of truth is opened, how the veins go, and what 
lieth higher, and what lieth lower." (b) 

Such were the hopes in which he indulged. So difficult 
is it to love and be wise. The King complimented him 
upon his work, saying, that " like the peace of God, it 
passeth all understanding f\c) but of a collection of natural 
history " ne verbum quidem." (d) 

Annexed to this doctrine of idols, there are some 
inquiries into the signs of false philosophy ;(e) — the causes 

(a) Vol. ix. p. 150, and vol. xiv. p. 4. 
(6) Vol. ix. p. xvi. 

(c) Ante, p. Ixxxvi. 

(d) See vol. ix. preface, p. xxvi. 

(e) The signs of false philosophy are, he says, # 1. Their 
origin. 2. Their fruit, whether barren or productive, whe- 
ther producing disputations, thistles and thorns, or grapes 
and olives. 3. Their progress, whether being founded in 

* Aph. 71, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, vol. ix. p. 221 to 229; vol. xiv. p. 51 
to 56. 



CAUSES OF ERROR. Cclxxxi 

of the errors in philosophy ; (a) — and the grounds of hope 
that knowledge must be progressive : (b) — hopes which he 

nature, they grow, or against nature are mules, and 
stationary. 4. The confession of authors. 5. The disa- 
greement amongst the professors, shewing that the way 
from sense to the understanding is not well guarded. 
6. Consent, the most fatal and lethargic of all signs. 

(a) The causes of the numerous and prevalent errors 
and their continuance through so many ages are, he says, # 

1. A scantiness of times, suited to knowledge. 2. The 
neglecting natural philosophy, the mother of the sciences. 
3. The considering natural philosophy only as a passage to 
other things, thus degrading the mother of the sciences 
to the office of a handmaid. 4. Mistaking the end of 
knowledge. 5. Mistaking the road. 6. Improper reve- 
rence for antiquity and authors. 7. Admiration of existing 
works. 8. Imagination of plenty. 9. The absurdities of 
projectors. 10. The pusillanimity of inventors. 11. Super- 
stition and the blind furious zeal of religion. 12. The 
customs and institutions of universities. 13. Despair and 
supposition of impossibilities. 

(b) The hopes that knowledge will be progressive are 
stated, he says, in imitation of Columbus, who, before he 
undertook his expedition through the Atlantic ocean, 
assigned his reasons why he expected to find new lands and 
continents.^ These reasons are: 1. General intercourse. 

2. Knowledge of the errors of past times. 3. The union 
of the experimental and rational faculties: not like the 
empirics, who, as ants, lay up stores and use them; or 
the rationalists who, like spiders, spin webs out of them- 
selves: but like the bee, gathering her matter from the 
flowers of the field and garden, and digesting and preparing 
it by her native powers. 4. Pure and unmixed natural 

* Aph. 78, 9, 80-1 to 92, vol. ix. p. 228; vol. xiv. p. 56. 
t Aph. 93 to 115, vol. ix. p. 249; vol. xiv. p. 69. 



road 



Cclxxxii LIFE OF BACON. 

had beautifully stated in the conclusion of his Advance- 
ment of Learning, (a) 
Right After having thus cleared the way by considering the 

modes by which we are warped from the truth ; by which, 
formed to adore the true God, we fall down and worship an 
idol : (b) after having admonished us, that, in the conduct 
of the understanding, a false step may be fatal, that a 
cripple in the right will beat a racer in the wrong way, 
erring in proportion to his fleetness, he expresses his asto- 
nishment that no mortal should have taken care to open 
and prepare a way for the human understanding from 
sense and a well conducted experience, but that all things 
should be left either to the darkness of tradition, the 
giddy agitation and whirlwind of argument, or else to the 
uncertain waves of accident, or a vague and uninformed 
experience. To open this way, to discover how our reason 
shall be guided, that it may be right, that it be not a 
blind guide, but direct us to the place where the star 
appears, and point us to the very house where the babe 
lieth, is the great object of this inquiry. 

philosophy. 5. The regeneration of sciences. 6. Supply 
of natural history. 7. Supply of mechanical experiments. 
8. The orderly conducting experience. 9. The not trusting 
to inventions, except in writing. 10. Tables of invention. 
1 1 . Proper use of tables of invention. 12. Proper conduct 
of understanding. 13. Proper induction which is the 
greatest hope. 14. Privation of reading, and dismembering 
the sciences. 15. Systematic, instead of accidental inven- 
tion. 16. The not forming conjectures of new things from 
examples of existing inventions. 17. The use of literate 
experience. 18. Knowledge of the nature of useless inquiry 
and idle curiosity. 19. Multitude of particulars. 20. 
Division of labour. 21. Experimenting. 
(n) Ante, p. cxxxvi. (b) See his essay " Of Love," vol. i. p. 31. 



CONDUCT OF UNDERSTANDING. CclxXXui 

As our opinions are formed by impressions made upon Formation 
our senses, by confidence in the communications of others, ° °P m 
and by our own meditations, man, in the infancy of his 
reason, is unavoidably in error: for, although our senses 
never deceive us, the communications made by others, 
and our own speculations must, according to the ignorance 
of our teachers, and the liveliness of our own imaginations, 
teem with error. 

Bacon saw the evil, and he saw the remedy : he saw and 
taught his contemporaries and future ages, that reasoning 
is nothing worth, except as it is founded on facts. 

In his Sylva Sylvarum, he thus speaks : " The philosophy 
of Pythagoras, which was full of superstition, did first 
plant a monstrous imagination, which afterwards was, by 
the school of Plato and others, watered and nourished. 
It was, that the world was one entire, perfect, living 
creature ; that the ebbing and flowing of the sea was the 
respiration of the world, drawing in water as breath, and 
putting it forth again. They went on and inferred, that 
if the world were a living creature, it had a soul and spirit. 
This foundation being laid, they might build upon it what 
they would; for in a living creature, though never so 
great, as, for example, in a great whale, the sense, and 
the effects of any one part of the body, instantly make a 
transcursion throughout the whole body : so that by this 
they did insinuate that no distance of place, nor want or 
indisposition of matter, could hinder magical operation; 
but that, for example, we might here in Europe have 
sense and feeling of that which was done in China. With 
these vast and bottomless follies, men have been in part 
entertained, (a) But we that hold firm to the works of 



(a) See absurdities of the same nature in Kenelm Digby's discourse on 
Powder of Sympathy, by which wounds were cured. He says, that " a man 



Cclxxxiv LIFE OF BACON. 

God, and to the sense, which is God's lamp, Lucema Dei 
Spiraculum Hominis, will inquire, with all sobriety and 
severity, whether there is to be found, in the footsteps of 
nature, any such transmission and influx of immateriate 
virtues." (a) 

In this state of darkness was society involved, when 
Bacon formed his Art of Invention, which consists in col- 
lecting all bodies that have any affinity with the nature 
sought; and in a systematic examination of the bodies 
collected. 



having cut his hand, asked me to view his wounds ; l For I understand/ 
said he, i that you have extraordinary remedies upon such occasions, and 
my surgeons apprehend some fear that it may grow to a gangrene, and so 
the hand must be cut off/ I told him that I would willingly serve him. 
I asked him then for any thing that had the blood upon it ; so he presently 
sent for his garter, wherewith his hand was first bound : and having called 
for a bason of water, as if I would wash my hands, I took a handful of 
powder of vitriol, which I had in my study, and presently dissolved it. As 
soon as the bloody garter was brought me, I put it within the bason, ob- 
serving in the interim what Mr. Howel did, who stood talking with a gentle- 
man in a corner of my chamber, not regarding at all what I was doing; but 
he started suddenly, as if he had found some strange alteration in himself. 
I asked him what he ailed ? * I know not what ails me, but I find that I 
feel no more pain ; methinks that a pleasing kind of freshness, as it were a 
wet cold napkin did spread over my hand, which hath taken away the in- 
flammation that tormented me before.' I replied, since that you feel already 
so good an effect of my medicament, I advise you to cast away all your 
plaisters, only keep the wound clean. After dinner I took the garter out of 
the water, and put it to dry before a great fire ; it was scarce dry, but Mr. 
Howell's servant came running, and told me, that his master felt as much 
burning as ever he had done, if not more, for the heat was such as if his 
hand were betwixt coals of fire. I answered, that although that had hap- 
pened at present, yet he should find ease in a short time ; for I knew the 
reason of this new accident, and I would provide accordingly, for his master 
should be free from that inflammation, it may be before he could possibly 
return unto him. Thereupon he went, and at the instant I did put again 
the garter into the water; thereupon he found his master without any pain at 
all. Within five or six days the wounds were cicatrized and entirely healed." 
(a) See Century x. of Sylva, vol. iv. p. 487, a tract containing materials 
for a work upon Imagination, most deserving consideration. 



AFFIRMATIVE TABLE. 



ccl 



XXXV 



To discover facts is, therefore, his first object; but, as 
natural and experimental history is so copious and dif- 
fusive as to confound and distract the understanding, 
unless digested in proper order, tables are formed and so 
digested, that the understanding may commodiously work 
upon them. 

TABLE I. 

The first, or Affirmative Table, consists of a general Affirmative 
collection of all the known analogous instances (a) which 
agree in the nature sought, from subjects however dis- 
similar or sordid they may be supposed to be, and without 
being deterred by the apparent number of particulars. 

If, for instance, the nature sought be heat or light, 
these tables may be thus conceived : 



Heat. 


Light. 


The Sun's direct rays. 


The Heavenly Bodies. 


Forked Lightning. 


Rotten Wood. 


Flame. 


Putrid scales of Fish. 


Blood of Terrestrial Animals. 


Glow Worms. 


Living Animals. 


Sugar scraped. 


Pepper masticated. 


Eyes of certain Animals. 


&c. &c. 


Drops of Salt Water from ours. 




Silk stockings rubbed. 




&c. &c. 



Such is the object of his first or affirmative table, which, 
he warns his reader, is not to raise the edifice, but merely 
to collect the materials, and which is, therefore, to be 
made without any hasty indulgence of speculation, although 
the mind may, in proportion to its ingenuity, (b) acciden- 
tally, from an inspection of affirmative instances, arrive at 
a just conclusion. 



(a) Nov. Org. Aph. x. L. 2. See vol. ix. p. 299. 
(6) See Aph. 30. Nov. Org. L. 1. vol. ix. p. 283. 



CclxXXvi LIFE OF BACON, 



TABLE II. 



Negative The second, or Negative Table, (a) consists of a collection 
of all the known instances of similar bodies, which do not 
agree in the same nature. — Thus let the nature sought be 
heat. 



Affirmative Table. 


Negative Table. 


The Sun's direct rays. 
Blood of Terrestrial Animals. 
Living Animals. 
Boiling Water. 
&c. &c. 


The Moon's rays. 
Blood of Fish. 
Dead Animals. 
Ice. 

&c. &c. 



By observing this table, it appears that the blood of all 
animals is not hot. This table, therefore, prevents hasty 
generalization. " As if Samuel should have rested in those 
sons of Jesse which were brought before him in the house, 
and should not have sought David who was absent in the 
field." 

By observing the table, it also appears that boiling 
water is hot; ice is cold: — living bodies are hot; dead 
bodies are cold ; — but in boiling water and in living bodies 
there is motion of parts : in ice and dead bodies they are 
fixed. Another use, therefore, of this table is to discover 
the nature sought, by observing its qualities which are 
absent in the analogous nature, " like the images of Cassius 
and Brutus, in the funeral of Junia;" of which, not being 
represented as many others were, Tacitus saith, " Eo ipso 
pr&fulgebant quod non visebantur" 

(a) Aph. 12. Nov. Org. L. 2. vol. ix. p. 301. 



TABLE OF COMPARISONS. 



ccl 



XXXVU 



TABLE III. 

The third, or table of Comparisons, (a) consists of com- Table of 
parisons of quantity of the nature sought in the same ^°™ pari " 
bodies and in different bodies. Thus, 



COMPARISONS OF HEAT. 



In different bodies. 


In the same body. 


There is no solid 


body naturally 


In Animals. 


hot. 






Animal heat varies from minute 


All bodies are in different 


degrees 


perceptibility to about the heat 


capable of heat. 






of the hottest day. It is always 


There is no whole 


vegetable 


hot to 


endurable. It is increased by 


the external toucr 


i. 




food, venery, exercise, fever, &c. 


Living animals. 






In some fevers the heat is constant, 


Flame. 






in others intermittent, &c. 


Anvil struck by hammer. 




Heat varies in different parts of the 


The continuance of 


a body 


m heat. 


same body. 


Boiling water. 






Animals differ in heat, &c. 


Pepper masticated. 








Boiling lead. 






Flame. 


Gas. 






1. The lambent flame, related by 


Lightning. 






historians to have appeared on 


Acids. 






the heads of children, gently 


&c. Sec. 






playing about the hair. 

2. The coruscations seen in a clear 

night on a sweating horse. 

3. Of the glow-worm. 4. Of the 
ignis fatuus. 5. Of spirits of wine. 

6. Of vegetables, straw, dry leaves. 

7. Of boiling metals. 

8. Of blast furnaces. 



By observing in this table the cause of the different 
quantities of the nature sought, some approximation may 
be made to the nature itself. Thus vegetables, or common 
water, do not exhibit heat to the touch, but masticated 
pepper or boiling water are hot. Flame is hotter than 
the human body : boiling water than warm. Is there any 
difference except in the motion of the parts ? 



(a) Aph. 13. Nov. Org. L. 2. vol. ix. p. 313. 



cclxxxviii 



LIFE OF BACON, 



TABLE IV. 

Table of Q r ^ Exclusions, is of a more complicated nature. Bacon 
assumes that the quality of any nature can be ascertained 
by its being always present when the sought nature is 
present: is always absent when the sought nature is 
absent: increases always with its increase, and decreases 
with its decrease. 

Upon this principle his table of exclusions is formed, by 
excluding, 1st, such particular natures as are not found in 
any instances where the given nature is present; or 2nd, 
such as are found in any instances where that nature is 
absent; and 3rd, such as are found to increase in any 
instance when the given nature decreases; or 4th, to 
decrease when that nature increases. Thus, 



Natures not always present with the 


Nature varying according to some 


sought nature. 


inverse law of the sought nature. 


Which may be ab- 


Which may be 


Which may in- 


Which may de- 


sent when the 


present when the 


crease as the 


crease as the 


sought nature is 


sought nature is 


sought nature 


sought nature 


present. 


absent. 


decreases. 


increases. 


Light. 


Fluidity. 


Quiescence of 


Light. 


Quiescence of 


Motion of the 


parts. 


Iron maybe heat- 


parts. 


whole body. 


&c. 


ed to a greater 


&c. 


Quiescence of 




heat than the 




parts. 




flame of spirit 
of wine. 
Quiescence of 
parts. 
&c. 



The object of this exclusion is to make a perfect resolu- 
tion and separation of nature, not by fire but by the mind, 
which is, as it were, the divine fire : that, after this rejection 
and exclusion is duly made, the affirmative, solid, true, 
and well defined form will remain as the result of the 
operation, whilst the volatile opinions go off in fume. 



ccl: 



TABLE OF RESULTS. CC1XXX1X 



TABLE V. 



The fifth table of Results, termed the first vintage or Table of 
dawn of doctrine, consists of a collection of such natures 
as always accompany the sought nature, increase with its 
increase, and decrease with its decrease. 

It appears, that, in all instances, the nature of heat is 
motion of parts ; — flame is perpetually in motion ; — hot or 
boiling liquors are in continual agitation; — the sharpness 
and intensity of heat is increased by motion, as in bellows 
and blasts; — existing fire and heat are extinguished by 
strong compression, which checks and puts a stop to all 
motion ;— all bodies are destroyed, or at least remarkably 
altered, by heat ; and, when heat wholly escapes from the 
body, it rests from its labours ; and hence it appears, that 
heat is motion, and nothing else. 

Having collected and winnowed, by the various tables, 
the different facts presented to the senses, he proposed to 
examine them by nine different processes : (a) of which 
he has investigated only the first, (b) or Prerogative 

(«) 1. Prerogative instances. 2. The helps of induction. 
3. The rectification of induction. 4. The method of 
varying inquiries, according to the nature of the subject* 
5. Prerogative natures for inquiry, or what subjects are to 
be inquired into first, what second. 6. The limits of 
inquiry, or an inventory of all the natures in the universe. 
7. Reducing inquiries to practice, or making them sub- 
servient to human uses. 8. The preliminaries to inquiry. 
9. The ascending and descending scale of Axioms. 

(b) Nor was any thing afterwards published towards executing the rest,; 
though it appears that the whole design was laid from the first, and that, 
at times, the other parts were gone on with, after the present piece was 
published . The want of these additional sections may, perhaps, be in some 

VOL. XV. U 



ccxc 



LIFE OF BACON. 



Instances, those instances by which the nature sought 
is most easily discovered. They may be thus exhibited : 



1. Contracting the inquiries 
within narrow limits. 



Exclusion of 
irrelevants. 



Nature conspi- 
cuous. 



2. Reality and Appearances. 
„3. Resemblances and Differences. 



n. 

2. 
3. 
4. 


Solitary. 
Travelling. 
Journeying. 
Nature in motion. 


-5. 


Constituent. 


-1. 


Patent and Latent. 


2. 


Maxima. Minima. 


3. 


Frontier. 


4. 


Singular. 


5. 


Divorce. 


-6. 


Deviating. 



1. EXCLUSION OF IRRELEVANTS. 

Solitary. Solitary Instances. — If the inquiry be into the nature of 

colour : a rainbow and a piece of glass in a stable window, 
differ in every thing except in the prismatic colours ; 
they are therefore solitary in resemblance. The different 
parts of the same piece of marble, the different parts of a 
leaf of a variegated tulip, agree in every thing, save the 
colour ; they are, therefore, solitary in difference. 

By thus contracting the limits of the inquiry, may it 
not possibly be inferred, that colour depends upon refrac- 
tion of the rays of light ? 

Motion. Nature in motion. — Observe nature in her processes. If 

any man desired to consider and examine the contrivances 
and industry of a certain artificer, he would not be content 
to view only the rude materials of the workman, and then 



measure supplied by a close attention to the present doctrine of Instances. 
But, in order to render the whole more generally intelligible and useful, it 
were greatly to be wished that some tolerably qualified person would give 
an essay upon it, in as familiar a manner as the subject will allow. See 
Dr. Hook's Method of improving Natural Philosophy. — Shaw. 



TRAVELLING INSTANCES. CCXC1 

immediately the finished work, but covet to be present 
whilst the artist prosecutes his labour, and exercises his 
skill. And the like course should be taken in the works 
of nature. 

Travelling Instances. — In inquiring into any nature, Travelling, 
observe its progress in approaching to or receding from 
existence. Let the inquiry be into the nature of whiteness. 
Take a piece of clear glass and a vessel of clear water, 
pound the glass into fine dust and agitate the water, the 
pulverised glass and the surface of the water will appear 
white; and this whiteness will have travelled from non- 
existence into existence. — Again, take a vessel full of any 
liquor with froth at the top, or take snow, let the froth 
subside and the snow melt ; the whiteness will disappear, 
and will have travelled from existence to non-existence. 

Journeying Instances.— In inquiring into any nature, Journeying 
observe its motions gradually continued or contracted. 
An inquirer into the vegetation of plants should have 
an eye from the first sowing of the seed, and examine 
it almost every day, by taking or plucking up a seed 
after it had remained for one, two, or three days in the 
ground; to observe with diligence — when, and in what 
manner the seed begins to swell, grow plump, and be filled, 
or become turgid, as it were, with spirit; — next, how it 
bursts the skin, and strikes its fibres with some tendency 
upwards, unless the earth be very stubborn ; — how it shoots 
its fibres, in part, to constitute roots downwards ; in part, 
to form stems upwards, and sometimes creeping sideways, 
if it there find the earth more open, pervious, and yielding, 
with many particulars of the same kind. And the like 
should be done as to eggs during their hatching, where 
the whole process of vivification and organization might be 
easily viewed; and what becomes of the yolk, what of the 
white, &c. The same is also to be attempted in inanimate 



CCXC11 



LIFE OF BACON. 



Consti- 
tuent. 



bodies ; and this we have endeavoured after, by observing 
the ways wherein liquors open themselves by fire; for 
water opens one way, wine another, verjuice another, and 
milk, oil, &c. with a still greater difference. 

Constituent Instances, — In inquiring into any nature, 
separate complex into simple natures. Let the nature 
sought be memory, or the means of exciting and helping 
the memory ; the constituent instances may be thus exhi- 
bited : 



" 1. The art of making 
strong impressions. 



- 2. The art of recalling 
impressions. 



..The patient. | 1- The mind free 



The mind agitated. 



2. The agent. \ *' Y™* of ™?™&™- 



2. Slowness of impression. 



1. Cutting off infinity. 



1. Order. 

2. Places for artificial 

memory. 
_3. Technical memory. 



w 2. Reducing intellectual to sensible things. 



Such are specimens of his mode of excluding irrelevant 
natures. 



Patent. 



2. OBSERVING THE NATURE WHERE MOST CONSPICUOUS, 
OR INSTANCES OF EXTREMES. 

Patent and Latent Instances. — In inquiring into any 
nature, observe where the nature, in its usual state, appears 
most conspicuous, and where it appears in its weakest and 
most imperfect state. — The loadstone is a glaring instance 
of attraction. The thermometer is a glaring instance of the 
expansive nature of heat. Flame (a) exhibits its expansive 
nature to the sense, but it is momentary and vanishes. 



(a) As the sudden lighting of gas. 



MAXIMA AND MINIMA. CCXClll 

— Again, let the inquiry be into the nature of solidity, 
the contrary of which is fluidity. Froth, snow, bubbles, 
whether of soap and water blown by children, or those 
which may be seen occasionally on the surface of a fluid 
or on the side of a vessel, or the looking-glasses made of 
spittle by children in a loop of a single hair or a rush, 
where we see a consistent pellicule of water, like infant 
ice, exhibit solidity in its most feeble states. 

Maxima and Minima. — In inquiring into any nature, Maxima, 
observe it in its extremes, or its maxima and minima. — 
Gold in weight; iron in hardness; the whale in bulk of 
animal bodies; the hound in scent; the explosion of gun- 
powder in sudden expansion, are instances of maxima. 
The minute worms in the skin is an instance of minimum 
in animal bulk. 

Frontier Instances. — Observe those species of bodies Frontier, 
which seem composed of two species: — as moss, which 
is something betwixt putrefaction and a plant; — flying 
fishes, which are a species betwixt birds and fish ; — bats, 
which are betwixt birds and quadrupeds; — the beast so 
like ourselves, the ape; — the biformed births of animals; 
— the mixtures of different species, &c. 

Singular Instances. — In inquiring into any nature, Singular. 
observe those instances, which, in regular course, are 
solitary amidst their own natures. — Quicksilver amongst 
metals; the power of the carrier pigeon to return to the 
place from whence it was carried ; the scent of the blood- 
hound ; the loadstone amongst stones ; that species of 
flowers which do not die when plucked from the stalk, 
but continue their colours and forms unaltered during the 
winter. — So with grammarians the letter G is held singular 
for the easiness of its composition with consonants, some- 
times with double and sometimes with triple ones, which 
is a property of no other letter. So the number 9 amongst 



CCXC1V LIFE OF BACON. 

figures possesses the peculiar property, that the sum of 
the digits of all its multiples is 9. (a) 

Divorce. Instances of Divorce. — Observe the separation of such 
natures as are generally united. — Light and heat are gene- 
rally united ; but in a cold moonlight night there is light 
without heat, and in hot water there is heat without light. 
The action of one body upon another is in general effected 
by the medium through which it acts ; thus sound varies 
with the state of the atmosphere, and through a thick 
wall is scarcely perceptible. The magnetic attraction 
seems to be an instance of divorce, as it acts indifferently 
through all mediums. 

Deviating. Deviating Instances. — Observe nature when apparently 
deviating from her accustomed course ; as in all cases of 
monsters, prodigious births, &c. He who knows the ways 
of nature will the easier observe her deviations; and he 
who knows her deviations, will more exactly describe her 
ways. For the business in this matter is no more than by 
quick scent to trace out the footways of nature in her 
wilful wanderings, that so afterward you may be able at 
your pleasure to lead or force her to the same place and 
posture again. As a man's disposition is never well known 
till he be crossed, nor did Proteus ever change shapes till 
he was straitened and held fast. 

Such are specimens of his modes of viewing nature 
where most conspicuous. 

3^ FIXING THE REAL, BETWEEN DIFFERENT APPARENT 

CAUSES. 

Crucial. Crucial Instances. — When in inquiring into any parti- 

cular nature the mind is in aequilibrio between two causes, 

(a) Thus, 9 x 2 = 18 and 8 -J- 1 = 9. 
9 X 3 =? 27 and 2 + 7 = 9. 
9 X 11 = 99 and 9 + 9 = 18 and 1+ 8 = 9. 



RESEMBLANCES AND DIFFERENCES. CCXCV 

observe if there is not some instance which marks the cause 
of the sought nature. — Let the nature sought be gravity. 
Heavy bodies, having a tendency to the earth, must fall ex 
mero motu, from their own construction, or be attracted by 
the earth. Let two equal bodies fall through equal spaces 
at different distances from the earth, and if they fall 
through these equal spaces in unequal times, the descent 
is influenced by the attraction of the earth. 

4. RESEMBLANCES AND DIFFERENCES. 

Observe resemblances between apparent differences.— 
Are not gums of trees and gems produced in the same 
manner, both of them being only exudations and percola- 
tions of juices: gums being the transuded juices of trees, 
and gems of stones ; whence the clearness and transparency 
of them both are produced by means of a curious and 
exquisite percolation? — Are not the hairs of beasts and 
the feathers of birds produced in the same manner, by 
the percolation of juices? and are not the colours of 
feathers more beautiful and vivid, because the juices are 
more subtilely strained through the substance of the quill 
in birds than through the skins of beasts? (a) Do not 
the celestial bodies move in their orbits by the same laws 
which govern the motions of bodies terrestrial (b) 

From the conformity between a speculum and the eye, 
the structure of the ear and of the cavernous places that 

(a) Does not an apple fall from a tree, and do not the planets move 
in their orbits by the same laws ? 

(6) See De Aug. L. iii. p. 169. " Quicunque enim superlunarium et 
sublunarium conficta divortia contempserit, et materia appetitus et pas- 
siones maxime catholicas (quae in utroque globo validae sunt, et universi- 
tatem rerum transverberant) bene perspexerit, is ex illis qua? apud nos 
cernuntur luculentam capiet de rebus ccelestibus informationem, et ab iis 
e contra quae in coelo fiunt haud pauca de motibus inferioribus qui nunc 
latent perdiscet; non tantum quatenus hi ab illis regantur, sed quatenus 
habeant passiones communes." 



CCXCV1 LIFE OF BACON. 

yield an echo, it is easy to form and collect this axiom, 
— that the organs of the senses, and the bodies that procure 
reflections to the senses, are of a like nature. And again, 
the understanding being thus admonished, easily rises to a 
still higher and more noble axiom; viz. that there is no 
difference between the consents and sympathies of bodies 
endowed with sense, and those of inanimate bodies without 
sense, only that in the former an animal spirit is added to 
the body so disposed, but is wanting to the latter ; whence, 
as many conformities as there are among inanimate bodies, 
so many senses there might be in animals, provided there 
were organs or perforations in the animal body, for the 
animal spirit to act upon the parts rightly disposed, as 
upon a proper instrument. And conversely as many senses 
as there are in animals, so many motions there may be in 
bodies inanimate, where the animal spirit is wanting; 
though there must, of necessity, be many more motions in 
inanimate bodies than there are senses in animate bodies, 
because of the small number of the organs of sense, (a) 
Diflfe- Real Differences in apparent Resemblances. ■ — Do any 

two beings differ more from each other than two human 
beings ? (b) Men's curiosity and diligence have been hitherto 
principally employed in observing the variety of things, 
and explaining the precise differences of animals, vege- 
tables, and fossils, the greatest part of which variety and 

(a) Bo not laughter and fear often originate in the same 
cause, a partial view of the subject which occasions the 
joy or grief? 

,(&) See the Excursion, B. 9, where there is a noble passage, beginning 

" Alas ! what differs more than man from man, 
And whence the difference ?" 

See .the introduction to Hobbes' Leviathan, the passage beginning " For 
the similitude of the thoughts." 



rences. 



RESEMBLANCES AND DIFFERENCES. CCXCV11 

differences are rather the sport of nature, than matters of 
any considerable and solid use to the sciences. Such 
things, indeed, serve for delight, and sometimes contribute 
to practice, but afford little or no true information, or 
thorough insight into nature; human industry, therefore, 
must be bent upon inquiring into, and observing the 
similitudes and analogies of things, as well in their wholes 
as in their parts; for these are what unite nature, and 
begin to build up the sciences. 

Such are specimens, mere specimens, of this most valu- 
able of all his works, and by him most highly valued. It 
is written in a plain unadorned style in aphorisms, in- 
variably stated by him to be the proper style for philo- 
sophy, which, conscious of its own power, ought to go 
forth " naked and unarmed ;" («) but, from the want of 
symmetry and ornament, from its abstruseness, from the 
novelty of its terms, and from the imperfect state in which 
it was published, it has, although the most valuable, 
hitherto been too much neglected : but it will not so 
continue. The time has arrived, or is fast approaching, 
when the pleasures of intellectual pursuit will have so 
deeply pervaded society, that they will, to a considerable 
extent, form the pleasures of our youth ; and the lamen- 
tation in the Advancement of Learning will be diminished 
or pass away : " Nevertheless I do not pretend, and I 
know it will be impossible for me, by any pleading of 
mine, to reverse the judgment, either of iEsop's cock, that 
preferred the barley-corn before the gem; or of Midas, 
that being chosen judge between Apollo, president of the 
muses, and Pan, god of the flocks, judged for plenty; or 
of Paris, that judged for beauty and love, against wisdom 



(a) See note B B B at the end, which contains an account of the various 
editions and translations of the work, and see preface to vol. ix. 



CCXCVlll LIFE OF BACON. 

and power ; or of Agrippina, * occidat matrem modo im- 
peret/ that preferred empire with any condition never so 
detestable ; or of Ulysses, ' qui vetulam prsetulit immor- 
talitati/ being a figure of those which prefer custom and 
habit before all excellency ; or of a number of the like 
popular judgments. For these things must continue as 
they have been : but so will that also continue, whereupon 
learning hath ever relied, and which faileth not : ' justificata 
est sapientia a filiis suis.' " (a) 

(a) To this doctrine of Bacon's there have been various 
objections, which seem to be reducible to two: — 1st. That 
the truth of which Bacon is in search does not exist. 
2ndly. That if it do exist, Bacon's is not the mode to 
discover it. 

The first objection is thus stated by Brown, in his work 
on Cause and Effect : " To those who have a clear notion 
of the relation of cause and effect, it may be almost 
superfluous to repeat, that there are no ' forms/ in the 
wide sense which Lord Bacon gives to that word, as one 
common operative principle of all changes that are exactly 
similar. The powers, properties, qualities of a substance, 
do not depend on any thing in a substance. They are 
truly the substance itself, considered in relation to certain 
other substances, and nothing more." 

This objection seems to have been anticipated by Bacon, # 

* Bacon's words are : " An opinion hath prevailed, and is grown 
inveterate, that the essential forms and true differences of things can by no 
diligence of man be found out. Which opinion, in the main, gives and 
grants us thus much : that the invention of forms is of all other parts of 
knowledge the worthiest to be sought, if it be possible they may be found. 
And as for possibility of invention, there are some faint-hearted discoverers, 
who, when they see nothing but air and water, think there is no further 
land. But it is manifest that Plato, a man of an elevated wit, and who 
beheld all things as from a high cliff, in his doctrine of ideas did descry 
that forms were the true objects of knowledge ; however he lost the real 



NO FORMS. CCXC1X 

Copies of the work were sent to the King, the University 
of Cambridge, Sir Henry Wotton, and Sir Edward Coke. 

who says, " By the word ( form ' is meant such a nature 
as is always present when the sought nature is present ; is 
absent when the sought nature is absent: increases with 
its increase, and decreases with its decrease. Thus the 
form of heat is some peculiar motion always present when 
heat is present, as in flame ; absent, when it is absent, as 
in extinguished flame; increasing with its increase, as in 
raging flame; decreasing in its decrease, as in expiring 
flame. Now, although the effect of this heat will be 
different, according to the body, whether living or dead, 
upon which it acts, it seems not to be very sound reason- 
ing to infer that the agent does not exist because the 
patient varies. The laws of light exist, although light 
does not produce the sensation upon a speculum which it 
produces on the eye: the laws of sound exist, although 
the sensation which is produced on the ear is not produced 
on the cavernous places that yield an echo." 

fruit of this most true opinion, by contemplating and apprehending forms, 
as absolutely abstract from matters, and not confined and determined by 
matter; whereupon it came to pass that he turned himself to theological 
speculations, which infected and distained all his natural philosophy. 
But if we keep a watchful and a severe eye upon action and use, it will 
not be difficult to trace and find out what are the forms; the disclosure 
whereof would wonderfully enrich and make happy the estate of man." 

" And if any one shall think that our forms have somewhat abstracted in 
them, because they appear to mix and join together things that are hetero- 
geneous, as the heat of the celestial bodies and the heat of fire ; the fixed 
redness of a rose, and the apparent redness of the rainbow, the opal, or 
the diamond; death by drowning, and death by burning, stabbing, the 
apoplexy, consumption, &c. which, though very dissimilar, we make to 
agree in the nature of heat, redness, death, &c. he must remember that his 
own understanding is held and detained by custom, things in the gross, 
and opinions. For it is certain, that the things above mentioned, however 
heterogeneous and foreign they may seem, agree in the form, or law, that 
ordains heat, redness, and death." 



CCC LIFE OF BACON. 

1620. The tranquil pursuits of philosophy he was now, for a 

7Ft fin 

' time, obliged to quit, to allay if possible the political 

The second objection is thus stated by Mr. Coleridge, in 
his Friend : " Let any unprejudiced naturalist turn to Lord 
Bacon's questions and proposals for the investigation of 
single problems; to his Discourse on the Winds; and put 
it to his conscience, whether any desirable end could be 
hoped for from such a process ; or to inquire of his own ex- 
perience, or historical recollections, whether any important 
discovery was ever made in this way. For though Bacon 
never so far deviates from his own principles, as not to 
admonish the reader that the particulars are to be thus 
collected, only that by careful selection they may be con- 
centrated into universals ; yet so immense is their number, 
and so various and almost endless the relations in which 
each is to be separately considered, that the life of an 
antediluvian patriarch would be expended, and his strength 
and spirits have been wasted, in merely polling the votes, 
and long before he could commence the process of simplifi- 
cation, or have arrived in sight of the law which was to 
reward the toils of the over-tasked Psyche." 

This objection was also anticipated by Bacon. # " To 
arrive," he says, " at an indisputable conclusion, every 
instance should be collected, as the different creatures, 
every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air were 

* Bacon says, " Let no man shrink at the multitude of particulars 
required, but turn this also to an argument of hope. For the particular 
phenomena of arts and nature are all of them like sheaves, in comparison 
of the inventions of genius, when disjoined and metaphysically separated 
from the evidence of things. The former road soon ends in an open plain , 
whilst the other has no issue, but proves an infinite labyrinth; for men 
have hitherto made little stay in experience, but passed lightly over it; 
and, on the other hand, spent infinite time in contemplation and the 
inventions of genius, whereas if we had any one at our elbow who could 
give real answers to the questions we should put about nature, the discovery 
of causes and of all the sciences would be a work but of a few years." 



THE PARLIAMENT. CCC1 

storm in which the state was involved, and which he vainly- 
thought that he had the power to calm. It is scarcely 
possible for any Chancellor to have been placed in a 
situation of greater difficulty. He knew the work that 
must be done and the nature of his materials. 

The King, who was utterly dependent upon the people, 
was every day resorting to expedients which widened the 
breach between them: despotic without dignity, and pro- 
fuse without magnificence, meanly grasping, and idly 
scattering, neither winning their love, nor commanding 
their reverence, he seemed in all things the reverse of his 
illustrious predecessor, except in what could be well spared, 
the arbitrary spirit common to them both. While the 
people were harassed and pillaged by the wretches to 
whom the King had delegated his authority, he reaped 
only part of the spoil, but all the odium. 

The Chancellor had repeatedly assured the King that 
his best interests, which consisted in a good understanding 
with his subjects, could be maintained only by calling 
frequent parliaments: advice not likely to be acceptable 
to a monarch who had issued a proclamation, («) com- 
manding all his .people, from the highest to the lowest, 

brought to Adam in paradise to see what he should call 
them, # yet such an attempt is beyond the reach of our 
limited natures." To proceed, however, with certainty, 
the collection and comparison of similar natures must be 
made, and is made by society at large, when, after the 
lapse of centuries, the instances having been collected and 
examined, we arrive at a sound conclusion, not unfre- 
quently at the same time, by different persons at different 
parts of the globe, 
(a) 23rd Nov. 1620. 

* See Advancement of Learning, vol. ii. p. 55. 



CCC11 LIFE OF BACON. 

not to intermeddle, by pen or speech, with state concern- 
ments and secrets of empire, at home or abroad, which 
were not fit themes for common meetings or vulgar per- 
sons ;" but, whatever their secret dissatisfaction might be, 
the whole body of the nation manifested so much zeal for 
the recovery of the palatinate, that the juncture was 
deemed favourable for relieving the King's pecuniary 
difficulties, who consented with this view to summon a 
parliament. 

This resolution was no sooner formed, than the Chancellor 
was instructed to confer with the most proper persons as 
to the best means of carrying it into effect; and he 
accordingly availed himself of the assistance of the two 
Chief Justices, and of Serjeant Crew, who, after mature 
deliberation, agreed upon four points, which were imme- 
diately communicated to his Majesty and to Buckingham, (a) 

Different days were fixed for the meeting of this eventful 
parliament, which was called with a full knowledge of the 
King's motive for summoning them; and that, had not 
the expedient respecting benevolences wholly failed, this 
council of the nation would never have been assembled; 
as the King considered the Commons " daring encroachers 

(a) First, the perusing former grievances. 

Secondly, the consideration of a proclamation rather 
monitory than exclusive. 

Thirdly, what persons were fit to be of the house, 
tending to make a sufficient and well composed parliament 
of the ablest men of the kingdom, fit to be advised with, 
circa ardua regni. 

Fourthly, the having ready some commonwealth bills, 
that may add respect and acknowledgement of the King's 
care. 

See letter, vol. xii. p. 267. 



VISCOUNT ST. ALBANS. CCC111 

upon his prerogative endeavouring to make themselves 
greater, and their prince less than became either." 

Previous to the meeting, the Lord Chancellor was raised 
to the dignity of Viscount St. Alban, (a) by a patent which 
stated that the King had conferred this title because he 
thought nothing could adorn his government more, or 
afford greater encouragement to virtue and public spirit, 
than the raising worthy persons to honour ; and with this 
new dignity, he, on the 27th day of January, was with 
great ceremony invested at Theobalds, the patent being 

(a) The preamble to the patent, which was witnessed by 
the most illustrious peers of the realm, the Prince of Wales, 
the Viscount Maundeville, Lord High Treasurer ; the Earl 
of Worcester, Lord Privy Seal; Marquis of Bucking- 
ham, Lord High Admiral; Marquis Hamilton, Earls of 
Pembroke, Arundel, Rutland, Montgomery, March, and 
Holderness, states, that as the King u thought nothing 
could adorn his government more, or afford greater encou- 
ragement to virtue and public spirit, than the raising 
worthy persons to honour, therefore he, after mature delibe- 
ration, had, in the person of Sir Francis Bacon, Knight, 
Baron of Verulam, descended from an ancient and honour- 
able family, so much the more illustrious, by his succeeding 
his most worthy and prudent father in the office of keeper 
of the great seal, to which, through various offices of 
inferior dignity, from a just experience of his capacity and 
fidelity, he had by his majesty been led, and his majesty 
reflecting moreover on his acceptable and faithful services, 
rendered as well by assiduity and integrity in the adminis- 
tration of justice, as by care and prudence in the discharge 
of his duty as privy counsellor, and in the management 
of his revenue, without respect either to private advantage 
or vain breath of popular applause, had deemed fit to 
advance his dearly beloved and faithful counsellor to a 
higher rank in the peerage." 



CCC1V LIFE OF BACON. 

witnessed by the most illustrious peers of the realm, the 
Lord Carew carrying, and the Marquess of Buckingham 
supporting the robe of state before him, while his coronet 
was borne by the Lord Wentworth. The new viscount 
returned solemn thanks to the King for the many favours 
bestowed upon him. (a) 

The thirtieth of January, an ominous day to the family 
of the Stuarts, was at last fixed for the King to meet his 
people, writhing as they were under the intolerable griev- 
ances by which they were oppressed; grievances, which, 
notwithstanding the warnings and admonitions addressed 
to the King when he ascended the throne, had most 
culpably increased. Power, not only tenacious in retaining 
its authority, but ever prone to increase its exactions, may 
disregard the progress of knowledge, but it is never dis- 
regarded with impunity. Truth, the daughter of time, not 
of authority, (b) is constantly warning the community in 
what their interests consist, and that to protect, not to 
encroach upon these interests, all governments are formed. 



(a) Upon the 4th of January, 16 Jac. he was made Lord Chancellor of 
England ;* on the 11th of July next ensuing created Lord Verulam;f and 
on the 27th of January, 18 Jac. advanced to the dignity of Viscount St. 
Alban ; J his solemn investiture being then performed at Theobalds ; § his 
robe carried before him by the Lord Carew, and his coronet by the Lord 
Wentworth. Whereupon he gave the King sevenfold thanks : § first, for 
making him his Solicitor; secondly, his Attorney; thirdly, one of his 
Privy Council, fourthly, Lord Keeper of the Great Seal; fifthly, Lord 
Chancellor; sixthly, Baron Verulam ; and lastly, Viscount St. Alban. 
Dugdale's Baronage, fol. 1676, vol. ii. p. 438. 

(6) Nov. Org. Aph. 84. 

* Claus. 16 Jac. in dorso, p. 15. 15 Jan. 15 Jac; Rymer's Fcedera, 
vol. xvii. p. 55. 

f Pat. 16 Jac. p. 11. Rymer's Feed. vol. xvii. p. 17. 
X Pat. 18 Jac. p. 4. Rymer's Feed. vol. xvii. p. 279. 
§ Annal. R Jac. in anno 1621. 



KING S SPEECH, CCCV 

Upon the opening of parliament the King addressed the 
Commons. He stated his opinion of their relative duties : 
that he was to distribute justice and mercy; and they, 
without meddling with his prerogative, were by petition to 
acquaint him with their distresses, and were to supply 
his pecuniary wants, (a) 

At first there appeared nothing but duty and submission 
on the part of the Commons. Determined, if possible, to 

(#) He said, " For a supply to my necessities, I have 
reigned eighteen years, in w r hich time you have had peace, 
and I have received far less supply than hath been given 
to any king since the Conquest. The last queen of 
famous memory had one year with another above a hundred 
thousand pounds per annum in subsidies; and in all my 
time I had but four subsidies, and six fifteens. It is ten 
years since I had a subsidy, in all which time I have 
been sparing to trouble you. I have turned myself as 
nearly to save expenses as I may. I have abated much 
in my household expenses, in my navies, in the charge 
of my munition. I made not choice of an old beaten 
soldier for my admiral, but rather chose a young man, 
whose honesty and integrity I knew, whose care hath 
been to appoint under him sufficient men to lessen my 
charges, which he hath done." And he concludes : " I 
confess I have been liberal in my grants, but if I be in- 
formed I will amend all hurtful grievances ; but who shall 
hasten after grievances, and desire to make himself popular, 
he hath the spirit of Satan. If I may know my errors, I 
will reform them. I was in my first parliament a novice ; 
and in my last there was a kind of beasts, called Under- 
takers, a dozen of whom undertook to govern the last 
parliament, and they led me. I shall thank you for your 
good office, and desire that the world may say well of our 
agreement."* 

* Rushworth, vol. i. p. 22. 
VOL. XV. X 



CCCV1 LIFE OF BACON. 

maintain a good correspondence with their prince, they 
without one dissenting voice voted him two subsidies, and 
that too at the very beginning of the session, contrary to 
the maxims frequently adopted by former parliaments, (a) 
They then proceeded, in a very temperate and decided 
manner, to the examination of their oppressions, intimating 
that the supply of the King's distresses and the removal 
of their vexations were to advance hand in hand without 
precedency, as twin brothers. 

Of their grievances the Commons loudly and justly 
complained. Under the pretext of granting patents, the 
creatures of Buckingham had rapaciously exacted large 
fees. These exactions can scarcely be credited, (b) There 
were patents for every necessary and conveniency of life ; 
for gold and silver thread; for inns and alehouses; for 
remitting the penalties of obsolete laws, and even for the 
price of horse-meat, starch, candles, tobacco-pipes, salt, 
and train-oil ; (c) and such traders as presumed to continue 



(a) Hume. (b) Journals. 

(c) The following notes from the Journals of the Commons, 6th March, 
may convey some idea of the state of these grievances : — 

" That Mr. Chr. Villyers was to have 800/. per annum ; Sir Edw. V. 
5001. per annum; and the King 200/. per annum; and that Sir Edw. V. 
hath had 1000/. or thereabouts; Chr. V. 150/. 

"That Sir Francis M. had 100/. per annum, payable quarterly, and had 
it paid two years. 

" That some were committed for refusing to be bound, first by Sir G. M. 
and Sir Francis Michell; after, by the Chief Justice. 

" That the patent 9 Jac. passed by the Countess of Bedford. 

" That he brought in 2,000/.; Fowles, 1,000/. &c. 

" The first patent procured by Lord Harrington and Countess of Bed- 
ford; the projector, to her Lassells. That they compounded with her for 
her interest in it. Knoweth not who preferred the petition. Bradde the 
first mover of it to him, and Dykes the second. That it was their own 
device, to change it from a patent to a commission. 

" That Sir G. M. and Sir Francis Michell executed the commission. 



EVIL OF PATENTS. CCCV11 

their business without satisfying the rapacity of the paten- 
tees, had been severely punished by vexatious prosecutions, 
fine, and imprisonment. The outcries of the subject were 
incessant. " Monopolies and briberies were beaten upon 
the anvil every day, almost every hour." (a) The complaints 
were so numerous that not less than eighty committees 
to redress abuses in the church, in the courts of law, 



That the last for the King's benefit ; only they to have three years benefit, 
for their monies disbursed. That the proposition was 10,000/. per annum 
to the King, out of which the pensions should have come. 

" That Sir Nich. Salter and Mr. Dyke managed all the business for 
licensing the importation of Venice gold, whereupon 6s. and 5s. 8d. taken, 
ut supra. 

" That Sir Francis Michell hath had from them 100/. per annum, 
besides petty things he got from others. 

" Sir Francis Michell, brought to the bar, confesseth he hath executed 
the commission for gold and silver thread. That he had 100Z. per annum 
for the execution, which he had it given by way of annuity, for certain 
years in certainty, for drawing the people to pay 3s. upon a pound. 

" That Sir H. Yelverton confessed he committed Paske, and four others, 
at the importunity of Sir Edw. Villyers, but yet with a letter to the Lord 
Chancellor, that he was pressed to it by Sir Edw. Villyers, and would dis- 
charge them, if his lordship did not confirm it. That, after, the Lord 
Chancellor, upon hearing, committed them close prisoners. 

10th March. — " The quality of the parties imprisoned : tradesmen. 
Kept there five weeks. The threats : an heavier hand; rot in prison. 

" Lord Pawlett : that Mr. Twitty told him this morning, that, if a pretty 
wench, and she would not consent to him, he would threaten her to carry 
her to the justices, and commit her. 

u Mr. Towerson : that the hindrance of importation a great hindrance to 
the vent of cloth. 

" That eleven several trades bound from use of their trades. Breaking 
open houses ; taking away goods. 

" That both the commissions directed to any two; yet Sir A. Apesley 
and Sir Francis Michell solely have committed, yea, that Fowles himself 
hath committed some for six days. 

" That some restrained not to work at all, some but to particular persons. 

" A letter of Sir G. Mompesson, that Mr. Villyers and Sir Edw. Villyers 
sharers." 

(a) Hacket, 



CCCVlll LIFE OF BACON. 

and in every department of the state, were immediately 
nominated, (a) 

From the mass of evils under consideration, the house 
first directed its attention to the three great patents, of 
inns, of alehouses, and of gold and silver thread. The 
chief actors were Sir Giles Mompesson, a man of property, 
and a member of the house, and Sir Francis Michell, his 
tool, a poor justice, who received annually £100 for 
issuing warrants to enforce his tyranny. The rage for 
punishment was not confined to Mompesson and Michell. 
Sir Henry Yelverton, the Attorney General, who had in- 
curred the displeasure of Buckingham, was prosecuted 
and severely punished, for some irregularity respecting a 
patent for a charter for the city of London, (b) 

It appeared before a committee of the house, that the 
profits from these patents were shared by all classes of 
society who were connected with Buckingham. Amongst 
the patentees were the Lord Harrington and the Countess 
of Bedford. Christopher Villiers, and Sir Edward Villiers, 
half-brother of the lord marquis, received £1800 annually 
between them ; and from one single patent the King's 
annual profit was £10,000. (b) 

(a) Journals, p. 522, A.D. 1620. 

(b) Journals of Commons. — The following is extracted from the diary of 
Judge Whitelock (see his excellent character in Biog. Brit, by Chalmers). 
The diary is entitled " Liber Famelicus," written by James Whitelock, 
commencing on the 18th April, 1609, and continued to 1631, in which is 
a diary of events during this period. 

" Upon Saturday, the 5th of April, I visited Sir Henry Yelverton, 
the new attorney, who related unto me the manner of his coming to the 
place; and shutting his clyents and other resort from him, shewed his 
ancient love and good opinion of me in an oure's discourse very neer. 
That concerning his place was thus: That the King having delivered the 
great seal to Sir Fr. Bacon, sayd openly before the lords, that now he had 
settled that, he had no cause to think further upon the rest of his business, 
for they knew he was resolved his solicitor should be attorney. Not long 



REFORM. CCC1X 

These rumours reached and alarmed the King, who 
instantly caused a communication to be made to the Lords, 
that the patent was sanctioned by divers of the judges for 

after, he understood by some of the lords, that the Erl of Buckingham was 
agent for another, and did crosse him, and was privily advised by some of 
his friends, as the Duke of Lenox, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and 
others, to repair unto him, and make away the falte. He absolutely 
resolved and vowed he would not deal with him about it nor speak to him, 
and so it continued some few days in a stand. Secretary Wynwood offered 
him to go with him to the King to exhibit his warrant to be signed ; but he 
refused, and protested he would leave it to the King, who he knew had 
judgment enough to chuse his own servants. One Robert Pye, a servant 
of the erl's, who was employed by him in his most private affairs, came to 
the solicitor early one morning, before he was out of his bed, and being 
admitted to him, told him that the Erl of Buckingham desired him to come 
to him, and to bring his warrant that sholde be signed. He went unto him 
as soon as he was ready; did thear begin a kind expostulation withe him, 
in that he had not used his help in cumming to the place of attorney, 
telling him that he looked for any recompence, notwithstanding Sir James 
Lea had offered 10,000/. to have the place. Mr. Attorney did protest 
unto me, upon his credit, that he neither gave to the erl, or to any other 
sub. in the kingdom, one farthing to cum to the place, nor contracted for 
any thing, nor promised any thing, nor had any speeche about it; but 
when the businesse was done, and no expectation of any thing, he went 
privately to the King, and told him he did acknowledge how like a good 
master and worthye prince he had dealte with him, and although there was 
never mention, speech, or expectation of any thing to be had for his having 
of this place, but he came to it freely, yet out of his duty he wolde give 
him 4000 readye money. The King tooke him in his armes, thanked him, 
and commended him muche for it, and told him he had need of it, for it 
must serve even to buy him dishes, and bad him pay it to his servant 
Murray, whiche he did, and shewed me the acquittances for it under the 
hand of Mr. Murray, who as I heer, is keeper of the privie purse.'' — P. 63. 

" It is not to be forgotten that the serjeants-at-law gave each of them 
600/. to the King; sum of them weare not worth the money, and sum 
never likely to see it half again in thear practise. Mr. George Croke was 
left out bycaus he refused to give money, and offence taken at his words 
bycause he sayd he thought it was not for the King." — P. 49. 

" This Michaelmas term, George Vernon, of Cheshire, a reader of the 
Inner Temple, was for money made serjeant and baron of the Exchequer." 

P. 138. 



CCCX LIFE OF BA COX. 

the point of law, and by divers lords for point of con- 
venience, (a) 

Reform was now the universal cry of the nation. It was 
one of those periodical outcries, (b) which ever has been 
and ever will be heard in England, till, by admitting the 
gradual improvement which the progress of knowledge (c) 
requires, the current, instead of being opposed, is judi- 
ciously directed, (d) The streams which for centuries roll 
on, and for centuries are impeded, at last break down or 
rush over the barriers and carry every thing before them. 
When in this deluge the ark itself is in danger, the patriot 
endeavours to confine the torrent within its proper banks 
and to resist or direct its impetuosity, while the demagogue 
joins in the popular clamour, visiting on individuals the 
faults of the times, and sacrificing, as an atonement to in- 
jured feeling, the most virtuous members of the community. 

When the complaints of the people could no longer be 
resisted, and public inquiry became inevitable, Bucking- 
ham, insensible to all other shame, appeared fully conscious 
of the infamy of exposure. The honour of a gentleman and 
the pride of nobility slept at ease upon the money-bags 
extorted from the sufferers, but he and his noble colleagues 
endured the utmost alarm at the prospect of discovery. 

Conscious of his peril, disquieted, and robbed of all 
peace of mind, admonished " that the arrow of vengeance 
shot against his brother grazed himself," (e) he consulted 
one of the ablest men in England, Williams, then Dean of 



(a) 12th March. — " The Lord Chancellor, removing from his place to 
his seat as a peer, reported what passed at the conference of both houses 
on Saturday last, the inducement of which conference was to clear the 
King's honour touching grants to Sir Gyles Mompesson, and the passages 
in procuring the same. 

(b) See ante, p. ciii. (c) See ante, p. xi. See note BB. 
(d) See ante, p. xi. note (6), ante, p. ciii. (e) Hacket. 



VILLIERS SENT ABROAD. CCCX1 

Westminster, who, well versed in matters of state, (a) soon 
saw the position in which all parties were placed. He 
recommended (b) that Villiers should, without a moment's 
delay, be sent upon some foreign embassy ; and, his guilt 
being less enormous or less apparent than of the other 
offenders, he was thus protected by the power of his brother. 
Villiers being safe, Williams advised compliance with the 
humour of the people, and suggested that in this state 
tempest (c) Sir Giles Mompesson and Sir F. Michell 
" should be thrown overboard as wares that might be 



(a) He was chaplain to Chancellor Egerton, and declined to accept the 
same appointment under Bacon. 

(6) " I will now spread affirmative proposals before your honor, which 
I have studied and considered. Delay not one day before you give your 
brother Sir Edward a commission for some embassage to some of the 
princes of Germany, or the north lands, and despatch him over the seas 
before be be missed." — Hacket, p 50. 

(c) In a memorial which he had prepared for Buckingham (see Hacket, 
p. 50) found after his death in his own hand-writing, he says, " Trust me 
and your other servants, that have some credit with the most active mem- 
bers, to keep you clear from the strife of tongues ; but if you assist to break 
up this parliament, being now in the pursuit of justice, only to save some 
cormorants, who have devoured that which must be regorged, you will 
pluck up a sluice which will overwhelm yourself. Those empty fellows, 
Sir Giles Mompesson and Sir Francis Michell, let them be made victims 
to the public wrath. It strikes even with that advice which was given to 
Caesar in Sallust, when the people expected that some should be examples 
of public justice, Lucius Posthumius, Marcus Favonius mihi videntur 
quasi magnae navis supervacua onera esse ; si quid adversi coortum est, de 
illis petissimum jactura sit, quia pretii minimi sunt. Let Lord Posthumius 
and M. Favonius be thrown overboard in the storm, for there are no wares 
in the ship that may better be spared. And your lordship must needs par- 
take of the applause ; for though it is known that these vermin haunted your 
chamber, and is much whispered that they set up trade with some little 
license from your honor, yet when none shall appear more forward than 
yourself to crush them, the discourse will come about, that these devices 
which take ill, were stolen from you by misrepresentation, when you were 
but new blossomed in court, whose deformities being discovered, you love 
not your own mistakings, but are the most forward to recall them." 



PCCX1I LIFE OF BACON. 

spared," quoting a wise heathen as a precedent, well 
knowing that his breviary contained no such doctrine : 
advice which was gratefully received by the marquis, who 
declared that, for the future, he would attend to no other 
counsellor, (a) 

It may, at first sight, appear remarkable, that, in matters 
of such moment, Buckingham should apply for counsel to 
Williams rather than to Bacon, by whose advice he pro- 
fessed to be always guided : it is, however, certain that he 
not only communicated privately with Williams, but that 
he carried him to the King, whom they found closeted 
with the prince, in much distress and perplexity, (b) when 
the dean read to his royal master (c) a document prepared 
at the suggestion of Buckingham, or the fruit of his own 
politic brain. 

It is to be hoped that the fiend ambition did not so far 

(a) " Advice which the marquis received with much thankfulness as he 
could express, and requited his adviser with this compliment, that he would 
.use no other counsellor hereafter to pluck him out of his plunges ; for he 
had delivered him from fear and folly, and had restored him both to a 
light heart and a safe conscience." — Hacket, p. 50. 

(b) " To the King they go forthwith with these notes of honest settle- 
ment, whom they found accompanied in his chamber with the prince, and 
in serious discourse together."— Hacket, p. 51. 

(c) Hacket, p. 51. — " Buckingham craves leave that the dean might be 
heard upon those particulars which he had brought in writing, which the 
King marked with patience and pleasure ; and whatsoever seemed conten- 
tious or doubtful to the King's piercing wit, the dean improved it to the 
greater liking by the solidity of his answers, whereupon the King resolved 
to keep close to every syllable of those directions ; and before the month 
of March expired, thirty-seven monopolies, with other sharking prouleries, 
were decried in one proclamation, which returned a thousand praises and 
ten thousand good prayers upon the sovereign. Out of this bud the dean's 
advancement very shortly spread out into a blown flower ; for the King, 
upon this trial of his wisdom, either called him to him, or called for his 
judgment in writing in all that he deliberated to act or permit in this 
session of parliament, in his most private and closest consultations." 



AUBREY AND EGERTON. CCCX111 

possess him, as to recommend the greater sacrifice of 
Bacon, should Mompesson and Michell be deemed insuf- 
ficient to allay the storm; but if ambition did influence 
this politic prelate, if the vision of the seals (a) floated 
before him, and induced him to plot against the " gracious 
Duncan," he could not bat foresee that the result of the 
inquiries would only convince the parliament that Mom- 
pesson and Michell were mere puppets moved for the profit 
and advantage of others, and that Buckingham, or one as 
highly placed, might be demanded. 

On the 15th of March, 1620, Sir Robert Phillips re- Charge of 
ported from the committee appointed to inquire into the ^rcMs 
abuses of courts of justice, of which he was chairman, that 1620, 
two petitions had been presented for corruption against the 
Lord Chancellor, by two suitors in the court of Chancery, 
the one named Aubrey, the other Egerton. 

Aubrey's petition stated, " That having a suit pending 
before the Lord Chancellor, and being worn out by delays, 
he had been advised by his counsel to present £100 to 
the Chancellor, that his cause might, by more than ordi- 
nary means, be expedited, and that, in consequence of this 
advice he had delivered the £100 to Sir George Hastings 
and to Mr. Jenkins, of Gray's Inn, by whom it was pre- 
sented to his lordship ; (b) but, notwithstanding this offering, 
the Chancellor had decided against him." 

(a) Ilacket, p. 51. — " The more the King sounded his judgment, the 
deeper it appeared, so that his worth was valued at no less than to be 
taken nearer, as counsellor upon all occasions." 

(b) See note GGG, March 15-17, from which the following is extracted : 
Awbrey complaineth, that, wearied in his cause in Chancery, he was 
advised by his counsel, to expedite his business, to present the Lord Chan- 
cellor with 100/. He got at use 100/. goeth with Sir George Hastings 
and Mr. Jenkyns to York House : there they two went, and returned to 
him, with thanks from my lord, and hopes of better success in his cause 
than formerly. 



CCCX1V LIFE OF BACON. 

Egerton's complaint was, that " to procure my lord's 
favour, he had been persuaded by Sir George Hastings 
and Sir Richard Young, to make some present to the 
Chancellor j and that he accordingly delivered to Sir 
George and to Sir Richard £400, which was delivered by 
them to the Chancellor as a gratuity, for that my lord, 
when Attorney General, had befriended him; and that, 
before this advice, Egerton had himself, either before or 
after the Chancellor was entrusted with the great seal, 
presented to his lordship a piece of plate worth fifty 
guineas; but that, notwithstanding these presents, the 
Lord Chancellor, assisted by Lord Chief Justice Hobart, 
had decided against him. (a) 

If Bacon, instead of treating the charge with contempt, (b) 

(a) To the first article of the charge, viz. in the cause between Sir Row- 
land Egerton and Edward Egerton, the Lord Chancellor received five 
hundred pounds on the part of Sir Rowland Egerton, before he decreed 
the cause : I do confess and declare, that upon a reference from his majesty 
of all suits and controversies between Sir Rowland Egerton and Mr. Edward 
Egerton, both parties submitted themselves to my award, by recognizance 
reciprocal in ten thousand marks a-piece. Thereupon, after divers hear- 
ings, I made my award, with advice and consent of my Lord Hobart. The 
award was perfected and published to the parties, which was in February ; 
then, some days after, the five hundred pounds mentioned in the charge 
was delivered unto me. Afterwards Mr. Edward Egerton fled off from the 
award ; then, in Midsummer term following, a suit was begun in Chancery 
by Sir Rowland, to have the award confirmed ; and upon that suit was the 
decree made, which is mentioned in the article. 

(b) Extrait d'un lettre de Monsieur le Chevalier Digby a M. de Fermat. 
— Et comme vous y parley de notre Chancelier Bacon, cela me fit souvenir 
d'un autre beau mot qu'il dit en ma presence une fois a feu Monsieur le 
Due de Buckingham. C'etoit au commencement de ses malheurs, quand 
l'assemblee des etats, que nous appelons le parlement, entreprit de la miner, 
ce qu'elle fit en suite ce jour la il eu eiit la premiere alarme: j'etois avec 
le du ayant disne avec lui; le chancelier survint et l'entretint de l'accusa- 
tion qu'un de ceux de la chambre basse avoit presentee contre lui, et il 
supplia le due l'employer son credit aupres du roi pour le maintenir 
toujours dans son esprit: le due repondit qu'il e'toit si bien avec le roi 



BACON S DEFENCE. CCCXV 

and indulging in imaginations of the friendship of Bucking- 
ham and of the King, thinking, as they were, only of their 
own safety, had trusted to his own powerful mind, and 
met the accusation instantly and with vigour, he might at 
once, strong as the tide was against all authority, (a) have 
stemmed the torrent, and satisfied the intelligent, that the 
fault was not in the Chancellor, but the Chancery. 

Might he not have reminded the house that, although he 
knew the temporary power of custom against opinion, he in 
resistance of the established practice, had exerted himself 
to prevent any interference, even by Buckingham or the 



leur maitre, qu'il n'etoit pas besoin de lui rendre de bons offices aupres de 
sa majeste, ce qu'il disoit, non pas pour le refuser, car il aimoit beaucoup, 
mais pour lui faire plus d'honneur : le chancelier lui repondit de tres-bonne 
grace, qu'en il croyoit etre parfaitement bien " dans l'esprit de son maitre, 
mais aussi qu'il avoit toujours remarque que pour si grand que soit un 
feu, et pour si fortement qu'il brule de lui-meme, il ne laissera pourtant 
pas de bruler mieux et d'etre plus beau et plus clair si on le souffle comme 
il faut." 

" My Lord Chancellor hath many bills put up against him, who is said 
to have made a very peremptory speech in the committee, wherein was this 
passage : that he wondered how the Lower House would or durst go about 
to question his personal honour," &c. — From the British Museum. 

(a) In the year 1824, when there was a senseless yell against Lord 
Eldon, a commission was appointed to inquire into the defects of the court 
of Chancery. That it abounded with defects was indisputable. Before 
this committee I was examined ; and aware of the tendency of the many 
to personify and make their complaints against magistrates, I did all in my 
power to resist it. The following is an extract from part of my examination. 
— I hope that in thus speaking of the Lord Chancellor's court, I may not 
be supposed to be speaking of the Lord Chancellor; or to attribute to 
him these defects, any more than I thought the defects of the commissioners' 
court should be ascribed to the commissioners. I cannot but think it most 
unjust to confound the court with the judge. There is a spirit of improve- 
ment now moving upon this country, which onght not, as it appears to me, 
to be impeded by personality. Permanent defects in a court may perhaps 
generally be traced to the constitution of the court: that is, not to the 
judge, but to society. 



CCCXV1 



LIFE OF BACON" 



Decision 

against 

donors. 



King, in the administration of justice, by which the im- 
partiality of the judges might be, or might appear to be 
disturbed, (a) 

Could he not have said that both petitions contained 
internal and unanswerable proof that it was not the cor- 
ruption of the judge, but the fault of the times, in which 
the practice originated ? Could he not have said that the 
presents were made openly, in the presence of witnesses ? 

How could these offerings have influenced his judgment 
in favour of the donor, when, in both cases, he decided 
against the party by whom the presents were made ? In 
the case of Awbrey he, to repeat the strong expressions 
which had been used, made " a killing decree against 
him:" (b) and with respect to Egerton, the decision was in 
favour of his opponent Rowland, who did not make any 
present until some weeks after the judgment was pro- 
nounced, (c) 

But, not contenting himself by thus showing that the 

advised y offerings were neither presented nor received as bribes, could 
counsel. ... 

he not have said, the petitions both state that the presents 

were recommended by counsel, and delivered by men of 

title and members of parliament ? (c) Did they then act in 



Presents 



(a) Ante, p. clxxiii. 

(b) See Journals in note GGG, under date 17th March, "a killing 
order made to Awbrey 's prejudice." 

(c) See note (b), ante, p. cccxiii. See note GGG, at the end, where 
the passage is as follows : " In the cause between Sir Rowland Egerton, 



pounds, on the part of Sir Rowland Egerton, before he decreed the same ; 
proved by the depositions of Sir Rowland Egerton : of John Brooke, who 
deposeth to the providing of the money, of purpose to be given to the Lord 
Chancellor, and that the same is delivered to Mr. Thelwall, to deliver to 
the Lord Chancellor : of Bevis Thelwall, who delivered the five hundred 
pounds to the Lord Chancellor." 

Whitelock, in his " Liber Famelicus," (see ante) says, " Presently upon 
my return to Cluer I did visit that honorable and worthy judge, Sir Edw. 



CUSTOM TO RECEIVE PRESENTS. CCCXV11 

compliance with long established practice, or were they 
all bribed ? Were the practitioners in this noble profession 
polluted by being accessory to the worst species of bribery? 
Why, when the charge was made, did the Recorder in- 
stantly say, " If Egerton desired to congratulate him at 
his coming to the seal for his kindnesses and pains in 
former business, what wrong hath he done, if he hath 
received a present ? And if there were a suit depending, 
who keeps a register in his heart of all causes, nay, who 
can amongst such a multitude?" (a) 

Could he not have said that the custom of the Chan- Customary 

cellor's receiving: presents had existed from the earliest t0 receive 
° r presents. 

periods ? (b) that a member had reminded the house of » 
its existence, and said, " I think the Chancellor took 



Coke, Lord Chief Justice of England, who was newly returned to Stoke 
from the parts about London, where he was fayne to attend about his 
unfortunate businesses at the court. Never man was so just, so upright, 
so free from corrupte solicitations of great men or frendes as he was. 
Never put counsellors that practised before him to annual pensions of 
money or plate to have his favor. In all cawses before him the counsel 
might assure his clyent from the danger of briberye, the secret mischiefs 
growing by wife, children, servants, chamber motions, courtesans great or 
small, and the most religious and orderlye man in his house that lived in 
our state." 

And his diary contains the following entry 

Profits of my office this half year, 
My Lord Brook's New-year's gift 
Howard, the attorney . . . 
New-year's gift, Sir R. Vaughan , 

Of Mr. Turner, the counsellor 5 

Pp. 103 and 109. 

(a) See note GGG. If Egerton, out of a desire to congratulate him at 
his coming to the seal for his kindnesses and pains in former business, 
what wrong hath he done, if he hath received a present ? And if there 
were a suit depending, who keeps a register in his heart of all causes, nay, 
who can amongst such a multitude ? 

(b) Ante, p. cciii. 



1622 (inter alia). 
. . . £40 
... 500 
... 10 



CCCXV1I1 LIFE OF BACON. 

gratuities, and the Lord Chancellor before, and others 
before him ? I have amongst the muniments of my own 
estate, an entry of a payment to a former Chancellor of a 
sum for the pains he had taken in hearing our cause." (a) 

This custom of judges receiving presents was not peculiar 
to England, but existed in the most enlightened govern- 
ments ; in the different states of Greece ; in all feudal states ; 
in France, where the suitors always presented the judge 
with some offering in conformity with their established 
maxim, " Non deliberetur donee solventur species;" and in 
England, from time immemorial, (b) It existed before the 
time of King John, and during his reign ; and notwith- 
standing the rights secured at Runnymede, it has ever 
continued. It existed in the reign of Henry the Fifth; 
and although, during the reign of Henry the Eighth, Sir 
Thomas More declined to receive presents, his very power 
of declining proves that it was customary to offer them, 

(a) See note (a), next page. 

(6) Barrington, in his observations on the statutes, as a note to Nulli 
vendemus nulli negabimus aut differemus rectum vel justitiam, says, " This 
part of Magna Charta is calculated to prevent abuses in the crown with 
regard to the administration of justice and in some cases the parties litigant 
offered part of what they were to recover, to the crown/' 

Maddox, in his History of the Exchequer, collects likewise many 
instances of fines for the King's favour, and particularly William Stutewell, 
presented to King John three thousand marks, for giving judgment with 
relation to the barony of Mowbray, which Stutewell gave against William 
de Mowbray, (I) Petyt. MSS. vol. i. p. 57, where the proceedings may be 
likewise seen. 

" It was usual to pay fines anciently for delaying law proceedings, 
even to the extent of the defendant's life ; sometimes they were exacted to 
expedite process, and to obtain right. The county of Norfolk (always 
represented as a litigious county, insomuch that the number of attornies 
allowed to practise in it is reduced by a statute of Henry the Sixth to eight) 
paid an annual composition at the Exchequer, that they might be fairly 
dealt with." — Maddox, Hist. Exch. p. 205. 

The Dean of London paid twenty marks to the King, that he might 
assist him against the bishop in a law-suit. 



CUSTOM TO RECEIVE PRESENTS. CCCX1X 

and, in conformity with this practice, the usual presents 
were made to Lord Bacon within a few hours after he had 
accepted the great seal, the only pecuniary compensation, 
except a very trifling salary, to which the Lord Keeper was 
entitled for labours never intended to be gratuitous, (a) 

What could have been said in answer to this statement, 
that the presents were made openly, that the decision 
was against the party by whom they were made, and that 
they were made by the advice of counsel and delivered by 
men of eminence, and sanctioned by immemorial practice 
in this and in all countries ? 

Might he not have called upon the justice of the house 
for protection from the aspersions of two discontented 
suitors, who had no more cause of complaint against him 

(a) The whole salary did not then exceed 2790/. per annum, according 
to the statement of Dean Williams, who says these are all the true means 
of that great office : 

Fines certain . . £1300 

Fines casual . . 1250, or thereabouts. 

Writs .... 140 

Impost of wine . 100 

2790 " 

See this subject fully considered in note G G. 

In Lloyd's life of Sir Augustine Nicholls, who was one of the judges in 
the time of James the First, he says, " We had exemplary integrity, even 
to the rejection of gratuities after judgment given, and a charge to his 
followers that they came to their places clear handed, and that they should 
not meddle with any motions to him, that he might be secured from all 
appearance of corruption/' 

When the charge was made against Lord Bacon, the following observa- 
tion was made in the House of Commons, as appears in the Journals of 
Lunee 26 Martii, 19 Jacobi. — Alford. That the Chancery hindereth com- 
merce at home. Many things propounded about the Lord Chancellor. 
Thinketh he took gratuities; and the Lord Chancellor before, and others 
before him. Hath a ledger-book, where 30s. given to a secretary, and 10/. 
to a Lord Chancellor, for his pains in hearing a cause. Will proceed 
from Chancellor to Chancery: will offer heads, to be considered by a 
committee. 



CCCXX LIFE OF BACON. 

than Wraynham, (a) by whom he was slandered, or Lord 
Clifford, by whom he was threatened to be assassinated 1 (b) 
Might he not have called upon the house for protection 
against these calumnies at a time when the excited people 
wished for some sacrifice, as a tribute to public opinion, an 
atonement for public wrongs, and a security for better 
times ? 

The people are often censured for their selection of a 
victim, but, where they contend for a principle, they lose 
sight of the individual. It is this dangerous indifference 
that enables bad men to direct, for private ends, a popular 
tumult. The Jew T ish people demanded merely their annual 
privilege; it was the priests who said, " Save Barrabas." 

On the 17th of March the Chancellor presided, for the 
last time, in the House of Lords. The charges' which he 
had at first treated with indifference, were daily increasing, 
and could no longer be disregarded. From the pinnacle 
on which he stood, he could see the storm gathering round 
him : old complaints were revived, and new accusations 
industriously collected ; and, though he had considered 
himself much beloved in both houses of parliament, he felt 
that he had secret enemies, and began to fear that he had 
false friends. He resolved, therefore, to meet his accusers ; 
but his health, always delicate, gave way, and instead of 
being able to attend in person, he was obliged by writing 
to address the House of Peers. 

To the Right Honourable his very good Lords, the Lords 
Spiritual and Temporal in the Upper House of Parliament 
assembled. 

My very good Lords, — I humbly pray your lordships all 
to make a favourable and true construction of my absence. 

(a) Ante, p. 104. (b) Ante, p. 241. 



LETTER TO PEERS. CCCXX1 

It is no feigning or fainting, but sickness both of my heart 
and of my back, though joined with that comfort of mind 
that persuadeth me that I am not far from heaven, whereof 
I feel the first fruits. And because, whether I live or die, 
I would be glad to preserve my honour and fame, so far as 
I am worthy, hearing that some complaints of base bribery 
are coming before your lordships, my requests unto your 
lordships are : 

First, that you will maintain me in your good opinion, 
without prejudice, until my cause be heard. 

Secondly, that in regard I have sequestered my mind at 
this time in great part from worldly matters, thinking of 
my account and answers in a higher court, your lordships 
will give me convenient time, according to the course of 
other courts, to advise with my counsel, and to make my 
answer; wherein, nevertheless, my counsel's part will be 
the least; for I shall not, by the grace of God, trick up an 
innocency with cavillations, but plainly and ingenuously 
(as your lordships know my manner is) declare what I 
know or remember. 

Thirdly, that according to the course of justice, I may 
be allowed to except to the witnesses brought against me ; 
and to move questions to your lordships for their cross- 
examinations ; and likewise to produce my own witnesses 
for the discovery of the truth. 

And lastly, that if there be any more petitions of like 
nature, that your lordships would be pleased not to take 
any prejudice or apprehension of any number or muster of 
them, especially against a judge, that makes two thousand 
orders and decrees in a year (not to speak of the courses 
that have been taken for hunting out complaints against 
me) but that I may answer them according to the rules 
of justice, severally and respectively. 

These requests I hope appear to your lordships no other 
vol. xv. y 



CCCXX11 LIFE OF BACON. 

than just. And so thinking myself happy to have so noble 
peers and reverend prelates to discern of my cause; and 
desiring no privilege of greatness for subterfuge of guilti- 
ness, but meaning, as I said, to deal fairly and plainly 
with your lordships, and to put myself upon your honours 
and favours, I pray God to bless your counsels and persons. 
And rest your lordships' humble servant, 
March 19, 1620. Fk. St. Alban, Cane. 

This letter, which was delivered by Buckingham, («) the 
Lords immediately answered, by assuring the Chancellor 
" that the proceedings should be according to the right rule 
of j ustice ; that it was the wish of the house that his lord- 
ship should clear his honour from the different aspersions, 
and praying him to provide for his defence;" a courtesy 
which his lordship instantly acknowledged, (6) with the 
expression of his intention to speak more fully at a future 
time. 

Thus resolved to defend himself, there was some com- 
munication between the Chancellor and Buckingham ; 
whether it was confined to the favourite must be left to 
conjecture; but it appears to have had its full effect both 
upon him and upon the King, who, seeing the untoward 
events which might yet occur from the discussions of this 
inquiring parliament, sent a message to the Commons, 
expressing his comfort that the house was careful to 

(a) The Lord Admiral declared, that he had been twice with the Lord 
Chancellor, to visit him, being sent to him by the King. The first time, 
he found his lordship very sick and heavy ; the second time he found him 
better, and much comforted, for that he heard that the complaint of the 
grievances of the Commons against him were come into this house ; where 
he assured himself to find honourable justice ; in confidence whereof, his 
lordship had written a letter to the house. The which letter the Lord 
Admiral presented to the house, to be read. 

(b) Journals. 






FURTHER CHARGES. CCCXX111 

preserve his honour ; his wish that the parliament should 
adjourn to the 10th of April; and his assurance that the 
complaints against the Lord Chancellor should be carefully- 
examined before a committee of six peers and twelve 
commoners ; a proposal not very acceptable to Sir Edward 
Coke, who thought it might defeat the parliamentary 
proceedings which he was so anxious to prosecute, (a) 

On the 20th, the Commons proceeded to the examination 
of witnesses, and a further complaint was preferred in the 
cause of Wharton and Willougby, by the Lady Wharton, 
against whom the Chancellor had decided. It appeared 
that the presents were made openly at two several times, 
with the knowledge and in the presence of witnesses, (b) 

(a) Mr. Secretary Calvert brings a message from the King, that this 
parliament hath sat a long time, and Easter is near come, and it is fit there 
should be a cessation for a time, yet the King will appoint no time, but 
leaves it to yourselves. But for the beginning again, he thinks the 10th of 
April a fit time, but will appoint none ; only he would have you take care 
that there be no impediment in the subsidies. The King also took notice 
of the complaints against the Lord Chancellor, for which he was sorry ; for 
it hath always been his care to have placed the best, but no man can pre- 
vent such accidents. But his comfort was, that the house was careful to 
preserve his honour. And his majesty thought not fit to have the occasions 
hang long in suspense, therefore would not have any thing to hinder it; 
but for the furtherance thereof, he proposed a commission of six of the 
higher house, and twelve of the lower house to examine upon oath. This 
proposition, if we liked it well, he would send the like to the Lords ; and 
this he thought might be done during this cessation ; and though he hoped 
the Chancellor was free, yet if he should be found guilty, he doubted not 
but you would do him justice. 

Sir Edward Coke said, we should take heed the commission did- not 
hinder the manner of onr parliamentary proceedings. 

The answer returned to the King was, rendering thanks for the first part 
of his gracious message ; and for the second, we direct that the like message 
may be sent to the Lords, for there being so good a concurrence betwixt 
us, we may have conference with them about it. Then adjourned. — See 
note G G G. 

(b) Journals. — The Lady Wharton having a cause depending in Chan- 
cery, many orders were made in it ; amongst the rest, there was an order 



CCCXXIV LIFE OF BACON. 

The cry having been raised, the lowest members of the 
profession, a common informer and a disgraced registrar, 



made for dismission, by the consent of the counsel on both sides, which my 
lady disliking, took Churchill, the register, into her coach, carried him to 
my Lord Chancellor's, and so wrought, that he was willed not to enter the 
last order, so that my lady was left at liberty to prosecute it in Chancery, 
brought it to a hearing, and at length got a decree. Keeling being- 
examined, saith, that near about the time of passing this decree, my lady 
took 100/. he saw it, and she made him set down the words and styles 
which she would use in the delivery of it. Then she goeth to York House, 
and delivered it to my Lord Chancellor, as she told him. Sh"e carried it 
in a purse ; my lord asked her what she had in her hand ? She said, a 
purse of her own making, and presented it to him, who took it, and said, 
what lord could refuse a purse of so fair a lady's working! After this my 
lord made a decree for her, but it was not perfected ; but 200/. more being 
given (one Gardener being present), her decree had life. But after the 
giving of the 100/. because she had not 200/. ready in money, one Shute 
dealt with her to pass over the land to my Lord Chancellor and his heirs, 
reserving an estate for life to herself ; but she knowing no reason to dis- 
inherit her own children, and confer it upon a lord who had no children, 
asked Keeling, her man, what he thought of it ? He, like an honest servant, 
was against it. Shute knowing this, sets upon Keeling, and brought him 
to be willing my lady should do it, with power of revocation, upon payment 
of 200/. in a reasonable time. Keeling lets fall some speeches, as if he 
had left York House for the corruption which was there, which he himself 
knew in part. Gardener, Reeling's man, confirmed the payment of the 
300/. for the decree, viz. 100/. before, and 200/. after. This purchased 
decree being lately damned again by my Lord Chancellor, was the cause 
of this complaint. 

Keeling saith, Sir John Trevor did present my Lord Chancellor with 
100/. by the hands of Sir Richard Young, for a final end to his cause. Sir 
Richard Young answered, that when he attended upon my Lord Chancellor, 
Sir John Trevor's man brought a cabinet, and a letter to my Lord Chan- 
cellor, and entreated me to deliver it, which 1 did openly; and this was 
openly done, and this was all I knew of it. 

Sir Edward Coke said, it was strange to him that this money should be 
thus openly delivered, and that one Gardener should be present at the 
payment of the 200/. 

Mercurii, 21st Martii, 18th Jacobi, Lady Wharton. — Sir Robert Philips. 
That Gardyner's man affirm eth, that, three days before the hearing of the 
cause the Lady Wharton put 100/. in a purse, went to York House, and, 



CHARGES. CCCXXV 

were, with their crew, employed in hunting for charges : 
and, so ready was the community to listen to complaints, 
that it mattered not by whom they were preferred ; 
" greatness was the mark, and accusation the game." One 
of his many faithful friends, (a) Sir Thomas Meautys, rose 
to resist this virulence. He admonished the house of the 
misstatements that would be made by such accusers, 
men without character, (b) under the influence of motives 
which could not be misunderstood. " I have known," he 
said, " and observed his lordship for some years : he hath 
sown a good seed of justice; let not the abandoned and 
envious choke it with their tares." He had as much 
prospect of success as if he had attempted to stop the 
progress of a volcano. 

as she said after, gave it my lord. That, in after, she put 200/. more 

into a purse, and took the money from Gardener at York House, went in 
to my lord, and as she said, delivered it to my lord, and had after presently 
the decree. 

To the fourth article of the charge, namely, " In a cause between the 
Lady Wharton and the coheirs of Sir Francis Willoughby, he received of 
the Lady Wharton three hundred and ten pounds," I confess and declare 
that I did receive of the Lady Wharton at two several times, as I re- 
member, in gold, two hundred pounds and one hundred pieces, and this 
was certainly pendente lite ; but I have a vehement suspicion that there 
was some shuffling between Mr. Shute and the register in entering some 
orders, which afterwards I did distaste. 

{a) Not so all his servants. — Upon his being in disfavour, his servants 
suddenly went away: he compared them to the flying of the vermin when 
the house was falling. — Aubrey, 1656. 

(6) Mr. Meawtys. Touching the persons that inform, I would entreat 
this honourable house to consider, that Keeling is a common solicitor (to 
say no more of him); Churchill, a guilty register, by his own confession; 
I know that fear of punishment, and hopes of lessening it, may make them 
to say much, yea, more than is truth. For my own part, I must say, I 
have been an observer of my lord's proceedings ; I know he hath sown a 
good seed of justice, and I hope that it will prove, that the envious man has 
sown these tares. I humbly desire that those generals may not be sent up 
to the lords, unless these men will testify them in particular. 



CCCXXV1 LIFE OF BACON. 

Additional charges thus collected, and of the same 
nature, were preferred against him. 
March 26. On the 26th of March, in conformity with the advice 
given by Williams, sentence was passed upon Mompesson 
and Michel, (a) many patents were recalled, and the King, 
after having addressed the house, adjourned the parlia- 
ment, (b) 

The King's speech abounded with that adroit flattery to 
the house, which he so frequently practised when he had 
any thing to gain or any thing to fear ; he did not name 
the Chancellor directly, and, when he glanced at the charge 
of bribery, while he cautioned them not to be carried away 
" by the impertinent discourses of those who named the 



(«) And so his lordship pronounced the judgment of the lords against 
the said Sir Giles Mompesson, in hac verba : " The Lords Spiritual and 
Temporal of this High Court of Parliament do award and adjudge : 1. That 
Sir Giles Mompesson shall stand, and be from henceforth degraded of the 
order of knighthood, with reservation of the dignity of his wife and children ; 
and the ceremonies of degradation to be performed, by direction of the 
Earl Marshal's court, whensoever he shall be taken. 2. And that he shall 
stand perpetually in degree of a person outlawed for misdemeanour and 
trespass. 3. And that his testimony be received in no court; and that he 
shall be of no assize, inquisition, or jury. 4. And that he shall be excepted 
out of all general pardons to be hereafter granted. 5. And that he shall be 
imprisoned during his life. 6. And that he shall not approach within 
twelve miles of the courts of the King or Prince, nor of the King's high 
courts, usually holden at Westminster. 7. And that the King's majesty 
shall have the profits of his lands for life ; and shall have all his goods and 
chattels as forfeited ; and that he shall undergo fine and ransom, which 
their lordships assess at ten thousand pounds. 8. And that he shall be 
disabled to hold or receive any office under the King or for the common- 
wealth. 9. And lastly, that he be ever held an infamous person." 

(b) The King in his speech said, " Three patents at this time have been 
complained of, and thought great grievances. 1. That of the inns and 
hostelries. 2. That of ale-houses. 3. That of gold and silver thread. 
My purpose is, to strike them all dead ; and that time may not be lost, I 
will have it done presently." 



KING S SPEECH. CCCXXV11 

innocent as well as the guilty;" he contrived to praise 
Buckingham, and to turn the charge itself into a dextrous 
commendation both of his favourite and the prince, (a) 

The parliament was then adjourned to the 17th of 
April, with the hope that, during the recess, the favourite 
or his master might contrive some expedient to delay or 
defeat investigation: and that time might mitigate the 



(a) " And the like I may say of one that sits there (Buckingham) ; he 
hath been so ready, upon all occasions, to do good offices, both for this 
house in general, and every member thereof in particular. One proof 
thereof, I hope my lord of Arundel hath already witnessed unto you, in 
his report made unto you of my answer touching the privileges of the 
nobility, how earnestly he spake unto me in that matter. This I profess 
and take comfort in, that the House of Commons at this time have shewed 
greater love, and used me with more respect in all their proceedings, than 
ever any House of Commons have heretofore done to me, or, I think, to 
any of my predecessors. As for this house of yours, I have always found 
it respective to me; and accordingly do I, and ever did favour you, as you 
well deserved. And I hope it will be accounted a happiness for you, that 
my son doth now sit amongst you, who, when it shall please God to set 
him in my place, will then remember, that he was once a member of your 
house, and so be bound to maintain all your lawful privileges, and like the 
better of you all the days of his life. But, because the world at this time 
talks so much of bribes, I have just cause to fear the whole body of this 
house hath bribed him to be a good instrument for you on all occasions, 
he doth so good offices in all his reports to me, both for this house in 
general, and every one of you in particular. Now, my lords, the time 
draws near of your recess ; whether formality will leave you time for pro- 
ceeding now to sentence against all, or any of the persons now in question, 
I know not. In sentence, ye are to observe two parts : first, to recollect 
that which is worthy of judging and censuring ; and secondly, to proceed 
against these, as against such Like crimes, properly. We doubt there will 
be many matters before you, some complained of out of passion, and some 
out of just cause of grievance. Weigh both; but be not carried away with 
the impertinent discourses of them that name as well innocent men as 
guilty; let your judgments only take hold of the guilty; proceed judiciously, 
and spare none where you find just cause to punish; but let your pro- 
ceedings be accordiDg to law : and remember, that laws have not their eyes 
in their necks, but in their foreheads." 



CCCXXVlll LIFE OF BACON. 

displeasure which, in both houses, seemed strong against 
the Chancellor. («) 

The proceedings within the house were suspended, but 
the Chancellor's opponents, unchecked or secretly encou- 
raged by his pretended friends, continued their exertions, 
actuated either by virtuous indignation at the supposition 
of his guilt, or by motives less pure, — the hope of gaining 
by his fall, or envy of the greatness which overshadowed 
them. 

The state of the Chancellor's mind during this storm 
has been variously represented; (b) by some of his con- 
temporaries he is said to have been depressed ; by others 
that he was merry, and not doubting that he should be 
able to ride safely through the tempest. His playfulness 

(a) Adjourned from the 27th of March to the 18th of April. The marquis 
had an eye in it upon the Lord Chancellor, to try if time would mitigate 
the displeasure which in both houses was strong against him. — Hackett. 

(b) March 24, 1621. Strange bills against him : Thursday and Friday 
was se'ennight the days that shook him, and himself sick in bed, and 
swoln in his body and suffering none to come at him. Some say he desired 
his gentlemen not to take any notice of him, but altogether to forget him, 
and not hereafter to speak of him, or to remember there was ever any such 
man in the world. Strange to hear that they talk at London of his former 
actions, and now of his present sickness. Vanity of vanities, all is vanity ! 
Happy are you who live as it were out of the jurisdiction of these great 
temptations, and walk not upon these dangerous pinnacles of these tottering 
pyramids of such false happy dignities. 

The following is an extract from a letter from Nathaniel Brent to Sir 
Richard Beaumont, of Whitley Hall, Yorkshire, dated London, March 23, 
1620. Brent held an office under Abbot, Archbishop of Canterbury. 
'* On Thursday next the parliament wil be adjorned for three weekes ; but 
before they dissolve, Mem. Parsons the fugitive must receave his doome in 
his absence, which is like to be exceeding severe. Your good friend the 
Lord Chancel or hath so many grievous accusations brought against him, 
that his ennemies do pittie him, and his most judicous frends have alreadie 
given him for gon. Notwithstanding, himself is merrie, and doubteth not 
that he shall be able to calme al the tempests raysed against him." — From 
the original, in possession of the Rev. B. Baudinell. 






HIS CHEERFULNESS. CCCXX1X 

of spirit never forsook him. When, upon the charge being 
first made, his servants rose as he passed through the hall, 
" Sit down, my friends," he said, " your rise has been my 
fall ;" and when one of his friends said, " You must look 
around you," he replied, " I look above me :" (a) Playful- 
ness in affliction is, however, only an equivocal test of 
cheerfulness ;(b) in a powerful mind grief rests itself in the 
exercise of the antagonist feelings, and, by a convulsive 
effort, throws off the load of despair. 

Difficult as it may be to discover the real state of his 
mind, it cannot be supposed, accustomed as he was to 
active life, and well aware of the intrigues of courts, that, 
in this moment of peril, his sagacity slumbered, or that he 
was so little attentive to his own interests, as to be sheltered 
in the shades of Gorhambury, all meaner things forgotten, 
watching the progress of some chemical experiment, or 
wandering with Hobbes in the mazes of metaphysics. 

(a) There are many other anecdotes of the same nature. — When his 
lordship was in disfavour, his neighbours hearing how much he was 
indebted, came to him with a motion to buy oak-wood of him. His lord- 
ship told them, " He would not sell his feathers." 

The Earl of Manchester being removed from his place of Lord Chief 
Justice of the Common Pleas to be Lord President of the Council, told my 
lord (upon his fall) that he was sorry to see him made such an example,, 
Lord Bacon replied, it did not trouble him, since he was made a president. 

(b) Such was the supposed levity of Sir Thomas More on the scaffold. 
When Danton was led to the guillotine he conversed upon the pleasures 
of rural life. This mood of the mind did not escape, and what did escape, 
the notice of Shakespeare, as may be seen in the light jests and quibbles of 
Hamlet. 

Wordsworth, describing the grief of a young man, says, 

" At his door he stood, 
And whistled many a snatch of merry tunes 
That had no mirth in them." 

A very intelligent medical practitioner once said to me, " Apparent 
cheerfulness by a powerful mind in danger is a bad symptom." 



CCCXXX LIFE OF BACON. 

His enemies, who were compassing his ruin, might 
imagine that he was thus indulging in the day-dreams 
of philosophy, but, so imagining, they were ignorant of 
his favorite doctrine, that " Learning is not like some small 
bird, as the lark, that can mount and sing, and please 
herself, and nothing else, but that she holds as well of the 
hawk, that can soar aloft, and at the right moment can 
stoop and seize upon her prey."(#) The Chancellor retired 
to prepare for his defence, to view the nature of the attack, 
and the strength of his assailants, (b) 

The charges which were at first confined to Aubrey 
and Egerton, were now accumulated to twenty-three in 
number, (c) by raking up every instance of an offering, 
even to the case of Wraynham, who had been punished 
for his scurrilous libel against the Chancellor and the 
Master of the Rolls. 

Of this virulence the Chancellor thus complained to 
Buckingham: "Your lordship spoke of purgatory. I am 
now in it; but my mind is in a calm ; for my fortune is not 
my felicity. I know I have clean hands and a clean heart, 
and I hope a clean house for friends or servants. But Job 
himself, or whosoever was the justest judge, by such hunting 
for matters against him, as hath been used against me, may 
for a time seem foul, especially in a time when greatness 
is the mark, and accusation is the game. And if this be 
to be a chancellor, I think if the great seal lay upon 
Hounslow Heath, nobody would take it up. (d) But the 



(a) Advancement of Learning. 

(b) See Theo. Idyll. 26, line 250, and Bishop Taylor on Sickness, 
describing the retreating of a lion when first struck, in his Holy Dying. 

(c) But the leisure of three weeks multiplied a pile of new suggestions 
against him, and nothing was presaged more certain than his downfall, 
which came to ripeness on the third of May. 

(d) The biographer of Lord Keeper North says, " I come now to his 



CALUMNIES. CCCXXX1 

King and your lordship will I hope put an end to these 
my straits one way or other." — And in a subsequent letter 
he said, " I perceive, by some speech that passed between 
your lordship and Mr. Meautys, that some wretched 
detractor hath told you, that it were strange I should be 
in debt ; for that I could not but have received an hundred 
thousand pound gifts since I had the seal, which is an 
abominable falsehood. Such tales as these made St. James 
say, that the tongue is a fire, and itself fired from hell, 
whither when these tongues shall return, they will beg a 
drop of water to cool them. I praise God for it, I never 
took penny for any benefice or ecclesiastical living ; I never 
took penny for releasing any thing I stopped at the seal ; 
I never took penny for any commission, or things of that 
nature ; I never shared with any servant for any second or 
inferior profit." 

About the same period he thus wrote to the King, in a 
letter which he entrusted to the discretion of Buckingham 
to withhold or deliver : (a) 

It may please your most excellent Majesty, — Time hath 
been, when I have brought unto you " Gemitum Columbae " 
from others, now I bring it from myself. I fly unto your 
majesty with the wings of a dove, which, once within these 

lordship's last and highest step of preferment in his profession, which was 
the custody of the great seal of England. And for conformity of language 
I call this a preferment, but in truth (and as his lordship understood) it 
was the decadence of all the joy and comfort of his life ; and instead of a 
felicity, as common reputed, it was a disease like a consumption, which 
rendered him heartless and dispirited." See ante, p. cxcii. 

(a) My very good Lord, — Yesterday I know was no day; now I hope 
I shall hear from your lordship, who art my anchor in these floods. Mean- 
while to ease my heart, I have written to his majesty the inclosed ; which I 
pray your lordship to read advisedly, and to deliver it, or not to deliver it, 
as you think good. God ever prosper your lordship. 

March 25, 1621. Yours ever what I can, Fr. St. Alban, Cane. 



CCCXXX11 LIFE OF BACON. 

seven days, I thought would have carried me a higher 
flight. When I enter into myself, I find not the materials 
of such a tempest as is come upon me. I have been (as 
your majesty knoweth best) never author of any immode- 
rate counsel, but always desired to have things carried 
" suavibus modis." I have been no avaricious oppressor 
of the people. I have been no haughty, or intolerable, 
or hateful man in my conversation or carriage : I have 
inherited no hatred from my father, but am a good patriot 
born. Whence should this be; for these are the things 
that use to raise dislikes abroad. 

For the House of Commons, I began my credit there, 
and now it must be the place of the sepulture thereof. 
And yet this parliament, upon the message touching reli- 
gion, the old love revived, and they said, I was the same 
man still, only honesty was turned into honour. 

For the upper house, even within these days, before 
these troubles, they seemed as to take me into their arms, 
finding in me ingenuity, which they took to be the true 
straight line of nobleness without crooks or angles. 

And for the briberies and gifts wherewith I am charged, 
when the books of hearts shall be opened, I hope I shall 
not be found to have the troubled fountain of a corrupt 
heart, in a depraved habit of taking rewards to pervert 
justice; howsoever I may be frail, and partake of the 
abuses of the times. 

And therefore I am resolved, when I come to my answer, 
not to trick my innocency (as I writ to the lords) by cavil- 
lations or voidances, but to speak to them the language 
that my heart speaketh to me, in excusing, extenuating, or 
ingenuous confessing ; praying God to give me the grace 
to see to the bottom of my faults, and that no hardness of 
heart do steal upon me, under shew of more neatness of 
conscience, than is cause. 



DEFENCE. CCCXXX111 

But not to trouble your majesty any longer, craving 
pardon for this long mourning letter, that which I thirst 
after, as the hart after the streams, is, that I may know, 
by my matchless friend that presenteth to you this letter, 
your majesty's heart (which is an abyssus of goodness, as 
I am an abyssus of misery) towards me. I have been ever 
your man, and counted myself but an usufructuary of my- 
self, the property being yours. And now making myself 
an oblation, to do with me as may best conduce to the 
honour of your justice, the honour of your mercy, and the 
use of your service, resting as clay in your majesty's 
gracious hands, Fr. St. Alban, Cane. 



To the preparation of his defence he now proceeded — a 
preparation which could scarcely to any advocate have been 
attended with difficulty, whether considering the general 
nature of the complaints, or the weight due to each parti- 
cular charge. 

There are circumstances attending these accusations, by 
which at this time the judgment may be warped, that did 
not exist two centuries since. We may be misled by 
transferring the opinions of the present to past times, and Transfer to 
by supposing that the accusations were preferred by some pas imes ' 
or all of the suitors whose names are mentioned, and on 
whose behalf the presents were offered after the termi- 
nation of their causes ; but it was then well known, that 
these suitors reluctantly attended in obedience to the 
summons obtained in consequence of the petitions presented 
by the two discontented persons against whom the Chan- 
cellor had decided, notwithstanding their supposition that 
his judgment was to be purchased. 

It could not have escaped the notice of any advocate Presents 
that the presents were made on behalf of the suitors, by eminence. 



CCCXXX1V LIFE OF BACON. 

men of character, counsellors, and members of parliament, 
Sir George Hastings, Sir Richard Young, Sir Henry 
Holmes, Mr. Jenkins, Mr. Thelwall, Mr. Toby Matthew, 
and Sir Thomas Perrott ; and that they were made openly, 
with the greatest publicity, both from the nature of the 
presents themselves, and from the manner in which they 
were presented ; so openly, (a) that even Sir Edward Coke 
admitted the fact, that they were delivered in the presence 
of witnesses; (b) and the Chancellor, in answer to the 21st 
charge, that, * upon a dispute between three public com- 
panies of the Apothecaries and Grocers, he had received 
presents from each of the companies," instantly said, "Could 
I have taken these presents in the nature of a bribe, when 
I knew it could not be concealed, because it must needs 
be put to the account of the three several companies, each 
of whom was jealous of the other?" 
Presents of Who can suppose that, if secrecy had been the object, 
rm me. p resen f. s f ar ticles constantly in sight would have been 
selected, gold buttons, tasters of gold, ambergrease, cabinets, 
and suits of hangings for furniture ; they were made, as 
was notorious, according to the established custom, in this, 
and in all countries, a custom which, as the Chancellor 
I/Hopital endeavoured to abolish in France, (c) the Chan- 
cellor Bacon would most gladly have abolished in England, 
and demanded from the country a proper remuneration for 
the arduous labours of his high office. 
Presents No man felt more deeply the evils which then existed, 
customary. Q f tne interference by the crown and by statesmen to 
influence judges. How beautifully did he admonish 
Buckingham, regardless as he proved of all admonition, 



(a) See the Whitelocke MSS. as to presents. 
(6) See Note GGG, date 20th March. 
(c) Ante, p. ccvi. 



DEFENCE. CCCXXXV 

" By no means be you persuaded to interpose yourself, 
either by word or letter, in any cause depending, or like to 
be depending, in any court of justice, nor suffer any other 
great man to do it where you can hinder it, and by all 
means dissuade the King himself from it upon the impor- 
tunity of any for themselves or their friends. If it should 
prevail it perverts justice, but if the judge be so just and 
of such courage, as he ought to be, as not to be inclined 
thereby, yet it always leaves a taint of suspicion behind it ; 
judges must be chaste as Caesar's wife, neither to be, nor 
to be suspected to be unjust: and, Sir, the honour of the 
judges in their judicature is the King's honour, whose 
person they represent." (a) 

Thus did he raise his voice in opposition to an inveterate 
practice. The first mode of correcting error, whether in 
individuals or in the community, is by proclaiming its 
existence ; the next is, when ripe for action, by acting. 

That the presents influenced the judgment of the No influ- 
Chancellor was never for a moment supposed by any man, er "j e on nt 
Fourteen out of the twenty-two charges related to presents 
made long after the causes were terminated, and the com- 
plaints of his accusers were, not that the gratuities had, 
but that they had not influenced his judgment, as he had 
decided against them. 

Such topics would have occurred to any advocate. With 
what force would they have been urged by the Chancellor ? 
In his Novum Organum, which he had published in the 
previous year, he had warned society, that " at the entrance 
of every inquiry our first duty is to eradicate any idol by 
which the judgment may be warped; as the kingdom of 
man can be entered only as the kingdom of God, in the 
simplicity of little children." How powerfully, then, would 

(a) Ante, p. 176. 



CCCXXXV1 LIFE OF BACON. 

he have called upon the lovers of truth and of j ustice to 
divest their minds of all prejudice; to be, when sitting in 
judgment upon a judge, themselves impartial. Knowing 
the nature of the high tribunal before whom he was to 
appear, there could, indeed, have been scarcely any 
necessity for such an appeal. He knew the joy which 
they " would feel, if he could clear his honour." He knew 
that, however grateful it may be to common minds to in- 
dulge in the vulgar pleasure of imaginary self-importance 
from the depression of superiority, a disinclination to con- 
demn, even if truth call for conviction, is an attribute of 
every noble mind, always afflicted at the infirmities of 
genius. Knowing that, amongst the peers, many valued 
themselves upon ancient learning, he would have reminded 
them, that " the tree scathed with lightning, was with 
them of the olden time ever held sacred. Sure no tree of 
the forest, under Jove's favour, ever flourished more than 
myself; witness for me all those, who while the dews of 
heaven rested on me, were rejoiced to shelter under my 
branches : and I the more readily, my lords, remind you 
of an ensample of heathen piety, because I would not in 
the presence of some of you speak of Christian charity, 
which, if it were not recorded by one who cannot lie, I 
have found so cold that I might suppose it to be only 
painted forth in books, but, indeed, without life, or heat, 
or motion." 

He could not have thought it necessary to warn the 
Lords, as he had apprised the King that " when from 
private appetite it is resolved that a creature shall be 
sacrificed, it is easy to pick up sticks enough from any 
thicket whither it hath strayed to make a fire to offer it 
with ;" nor to have said to the Lords, as he had said to 
the King, l( For the briberies and gifts wherewith I am 
charged, when the book of hearts shall be opened, I hope 



DEFENCE. CCCXXXVtl 

I shall not be found to have the troubled fountain of a 
corrupt heart, in a depraved habit of taking rewards to 
pervert justice : however, I may be frail, and partake of 
the abuses of the times." — For such appeals there would 
not, before such a tribunal, have been any necessity. 

Passing from these general observations, how easy would Particular 
it have been to have examined each particular charge, by 
separating the bundle, and breaking it stick by stick ? 

In the case of Holman and Young, it was alleged that Holman 
£1000 had been given to the Chancellor by Young, (a) Young: 

(a) 22nd March. — In a suit between Hull, plaintiff, and Holman, de- 
fendant, Holman, deferring his answer, was committed to the Fleet, where 
he lay twenty weeks, and petitioning to be delivered, was answered by 
some about the Lord Chancellor, the bill shall be decreed against him 
(pro confesso), unless he would enter into 2000/. bond to stand to the 
Lord Chancellor's order ; which he refusing, his liberty cost him, one way 
and other, better than 1000/. Holman being freed out of the Fleet, Hull 
petitioned to the Lord Chancellor, and Holman, finding his cause to go 
hard on his side, complained to the Commons ; whereupon the Lord 
Chancellor sent for him, and, to pacify him, told him, he should have what 
order he would himself. 

From the Tract. — Mercurii, 21st Martii, 1620. Sir Robert Philips 
reports from the committee to examine Keeling and Churchill, who in- 
formed of many corruptions against my Lord Chancellor. 1 . In the cause 
between Hull and Holman, Hull gave or lent my lord 1000/. since the 
suit began. 

From the Journals. — March 21, 18th James. Hull and Holman. Sir 
R. Philips. Another case; Hull and Holman. Holman, refusing to 
answer, committed ; there lay twenty weeks : after required to answer, and 
to give bond of 2,000/. to stand to my Lord Chancellor's order in it. 
That one Manby, about the Exchange, dealt in this business with Mr. 
Mewtys. That Holman, finding his order vary, resolved to complain to 
this house. That, upon Friday last, my lord sent for Hull and Holman; 
offered to make an indifferent end between them : and that Holman told 
Keeling he was a happy man now, he could have any thing from my Lord 
Chancellor. 

To the seventh article of the charge, namely, " In the cause between 
Holman and Young, he received of Young 100/. after the decree made for 
him :" I confess and declare, that as I remember, a good while after the 
VOL. XV. Z 



Hody. 



CCCXXXV11I LIFE OF BACON. 

Upon investigation it appeared, on this charge of a discon- 
tented suitor, that instead of £1000 having been advanced, 
the sum was £100, which was presented on behalf of 
Young after the decree* either by Young or by Mr. Toby 
Matthew, a son of the Archbishop of York, through life 
an intimate friend and correspondent of the Chancellor's* 
and in 1623 knighted by King James. («) 
Worth and In the cause of Worth and Main waring, it was alleged 
ring. that the Chancellor had been bribed by £100. Upon 

examination it appeared, that some months after the decree, 
which was for a great inheritance, the successful party 
presented £100. to the Chancellor, (b) 
Hody and T n the case of Hody and Hody, the charge was, that 
£100. or £200. was presented to the Chancellor. The 
fact was that, some time after the suit was terminated r 



cause ended, I received 100£. either by Mr. Toby Matthew, or from Young 
himself ; but whereas I have understood that there was some money given 
by Holman to my servant Hatcher, to that certainly I was never made 
privy. — See note G G G. 

(a) Son of Dr. Tobie Matthew, Archbishop of York. He was born at 
Oxford, in 1578, while his father was Dean of Christ Church, and educated 
there. During his travels abroad, he was seduced to the Romish religion 
by Father Parsons. This occasioned his living out of his own country from 
the year 1607 to 1617, when he had leave to return to England. He was 
again ordered to leave it in October, 1618 ; but in 1622 was recalled to 
assist in the match with Spain ; and, on account of his endeavours to pro- 
mote it, was knighted by King James I. at Royston, on the 10th October, 
1623. He translated into Italian Sir Francis Bacon's Essays, and died at 
Ghent in Flanders, October 13, 1655,. N. S. 

(b) To the thirteenth article of the charge, namely, " He received of 
Mr. Worth 100/. in respect of the cause between him and Sir Arthur 
Mainwaring," I confess and declare that this cause, being a cause for inhe- 
ritance of good value, was ended by my arbitrament and consent of parties ; 
so a decree passed of course ; and some months after the cause was ended,, 
the lOOl. mentioned in the said article was delivered to me by my servant 
Hunt. — Hunt was detected by the Chancellor as having privately received 
£00/. which he made him return. 



PARTICULAR CHARGES. CCCXXX1X 

Sir Thomas Perrot and Sir Henry Holmes presented the 
Chancellor with some gold buttons, worth forty guineas, (a) 

In the case between Reynell and Peacock, the charge Reynell 
was, that there was much money given on both sides, and p 1 eacoc ^ # 
a diamond ring. The facts turned out to be that presents 
were given on both sides ; that Sir George Reynell was a 
near ally of the Chancellor's, and presented the gratuity 
as a New Year's gift for former favours, when the great 
seal was first delivered to the Lord Keeper, and when 
presents were, as of course, presented by various persons ; 
and that by the intervention of a friend and neighbour at 
St. Albans, he borrowed a sum of Peacock, (b) 

In the cause of Barker and Hill, the charge was, that Barker and 
the Chancellor had been bribed by a present made by 1 ' 
Barker. The fact was, that the sum was presented some 
time after the decree had been made, (c) 



(a) See note G G G. 

(b) I confess and declare, that at my first coming to the seal, when I 
was at Whitehall, my servant Hunt delivered to me 200/. from Sir George 
Reynell, my near ally, to be bestowed upon furniture of my house, adding 
further that he had received divers former favours from me, and this was, as 
I verily think, before any suit begun. The ring was certainly received 
pendente lite, and though it were at New-year's tide, it was too great a 
value for a New-year's gift, though, as I take it, nothing near the value 
mentioned in the charge. 

To the twentieth article of the charge, namely, " That he took of Pea- 
cock 100/. at Dorset House, at my first coming to the seal, as a present, 
at which time no suit was begun; and at the summer after, I sent my 
then servant Lister to Mr. Rolfe, my good friend and neighbour at 
St. Albans, to use his means with Mr. Peacock, who was accounted a 
moneyed man, for the borrowing of 300/. and after by my servant Hatcher 
for borrowing of 500/. more, which Mr. Rolfe procured ; and told me at 
both times it should be without interest, script, or note, and that I should 
take my own time for payment of it. 

(c) To the twenty-third article of the charge, namely, " In the cause of 
Mr. Barker, the Lord Chancellor received from Barker 700/." I confess 
and declare, that the sum mentioned in the article was received from 
Mr. Barker some time after the decree past. 



CCCX1 LIFE OF BACOISI. 

Smithwick In the case of Smithwick and Wyche, the charge was, 
Wvche tnat Sm^hwick nac ^ presented £600 to the Chancellor, 
but he had decided against him, and the money was repaid. 
The fact was, that Smithwick had paid £200 to Hunt, one 
of the Chancellor's servants, unknown to the Chancellor ; 
that the decision was against Smithwick, and that the 
Chancellor, when he saw an entry of the sum in his 
servant's account, had defalced it, and ordered it to be 
returned, (a) 

He might, in the same manner, have decomposed all the 
charges. He might have selected the fourteen cases in 
which the presents were made after, and many of them 
long after judgment had been pronounced, (b) He might 
have taken each particular case where the presents were 

(a) In the cause between Smithwick and Wyche, the matter in question 
being for accompts ; the merchants, to whom it was referred, certified on 
the behalf of Smithwick ; yet Smithwick, to obtain a decree in his cause, 
was told by one Mr. Borough (one near the Lord Chancellor), that it must 
cost him 200/. which he paid to Mr. Borough, or Mr. Hunt, to the use of 
the Lord Chancellor; and yet the Lord Chancellor decreed but one part 
of the certificate; whereupon he treats again with Mr. Borough, who 
demanded another 100/. which Smithwick also paid, to the use of the 
Lord Chancellor; then his lordship referred the accompts again to the 
same merchants, who certified again for Smithwick : yet his lordship de- 
creed the second part of the certificate against Smithwick, and the first part 
(which was formerly decreed for him) his lordship made doubtful . Smith- 
wick petitioned to the Lord Chancellor for his money again, and had it all, 
save 20/. kept back by Hunt for a year. 

To the twenty-first article of the charge, namely, " In the cause between 
Smithwick and Wyche, he received from Smithwick 200/. which was 
repaid:" I confess and declare, that my servant Hunt did, upon his 
account, being my receiver of the fines upon original writs, charge himself 
with 200/. formerly received of Smithwick ; which, after that I had under- 
stood the nature of it, I ordered him to repay, and to defalke it out of his 
accounts. 

(6) 1. Egerton and Egerton. 2. Hody and Hody. 3. Monk's case. 
4. Trevor and Ascue. 5. Holman and Young. 6. Fisher and Wrenham. 
7. Scott's case. 8. Lenthall. 9. Wroth's case. 10. Lord Montagu's. 
11. Dunch's case. 12. Buswell. 13. Barker. 14. French merchants. 



THE KING'S AGITATION. CCCxli 

before judgment, and the decrees against the donors. (a) 
He might have explained that, in some of the cases, he 
acted only as arbitrator ; (b) and in others that the sums 
received were not gifts, but loans, and that he had decided 
against his creditor ; (c) and in others that the sums offered 
were refused and returned. And to the twenty-eighth 
charge, " that the Lord Chancellor hath given way to great 
exactions by his servants/' he surely might have admitted 
that he was negligent in not looking better to his servants. 
Standing on a cliff, and surveying the whole intellectual 
world, he did not see every pebble on the shore. 

Some defence of this nature could not but have occurred 
to the Chancellor ? 

Whatever doubt may exist as to the state of his mind, Fears of 
there is none with respect either to the King or Bucking- * ^ Bok- 
hara. The King was disquieted, and Buckingham robbed ingham. 
of all peace, (d) This was the very state of mental fusion 
favourable for experiment by a shrewd politician. " It is 
the doctrine of philosophy that to be speculative into 
another man, to the end to know how to work him, or 
wind him, or govern him, proceedeth from a heart that 
is double and cloven, and not entire and ingenuous." (e) 
This is not the politician's creed, (f) 



(a) As Egerton, and Aubrey, and Wrenham, and, possibly, all of them, 
for the particulars do not appear, as they would have appeared if against 
the Chancellor. 

(b) Egerton and Egerton. Wroth's case. Apothecaries and Grocers. 
Vintners. 

(c) Vanlore, a bond and bill with security. Compton's case. Reynell 
and Peacock. 

(d) Hackett. 
- (e) Ante. 

(J") The politician compasses what he considers the best end, by any 
means. The place-hunter, like the steeple-hunter, keeps his object in 
view, and cares not how dirty the road by which he arrives at it. 



CCCxlii LTFE OF BACON. 

The King's fears, notwithstanding his pecuniary dis- 
tresses, disposed him to dissolve the parliament, to which 
he had been advised, (a) though by this measure he should 
lose his two subsidies. Williams dissuaded him from such 
Advice of an expedient. " There is," he said, " no colour to quarrel 
at this general assembly of the kingdom, for tracing 
delinquents to their form: it is their proper work, and 
your majesty hath nobly encouraged them to it. Your 
lordship," he said, turning to Buckingham, "is jealous, if 
the parliament continue embodied, of your own safety. 
Follow it, swim with the tide: trust me and your other 
servants that have some credit with the most active mem- 
bers, to keep you clear from the strife of tongues ; but if 
you break up this parliament, in pursuit of justice, only 
to save some cormorants who have devoured that which 
they must disgorge, you will pluck up a sluice which will 
overwhelm you all." 

The King listened to the advice of Williams ; and his 
determination not to dissolve the parliament was followed, 
of course, by the consideration how the charges were to be 
met, by resistance or by submission. 

There cannot be any difficulty in following the train of 
Williams's reasoning in this conclave. " Resistance will be 

(a) The obnoxious that were brought to the ear of justice, with a multi- 
tude that feared to be in as ill condition, saw no way for safety but to 
poison the King with an ill opinion of the parliament, that it might evapo- 
rate into a nullity. They terrify the lord marquis that the grants of these 
things which are now bastardized by the knights and burgesses, nay, by 
the lords that envy him, were begotten by his favour and credit. That the 
arrow of vengeance, which is shot at his brother, grazed him. That it was 
time to look about him ; for at the opening of that session it was much 
noted, that the King had said before all the members, Spare none where 
you find just cause to punish. That it were less danger for the King to 
gather such a sum or greater by his prerogative, though it be out of the 
way, than to wait for the exhibition of a little money, which will cost dis- 
honour, and the ruin of his most loyal and faithful servants. — Hacket, p. 49. 






WILLTAMS^S ADVICE, CCCxliii 

attended with danger to your lordship and to his majesty. 
These popular outcries thrive by opposition, and when they 
cease to be opposed, they cease to exist. The Chancellor 
has been accused. He cannot escape unheard* He must 
be acquitted or convicted. He cannot, in this time of 
excitement and prejudgment, expect justice. His mind 
will easily be impressed by the fate of other great men, 
sacrifices to the blind ignorance of a vulgar populace, 
whom talent will not propitiate or innocence appease. Can 
it be doubted, that the prudent course will be the Chan- 
cellor's submission, as an atonement for all who are under 
popular suspicion* The only difficulty will be to prevail 
upon him to submit, He has resolved to defend himself, 
and in speech he is all powerful ; but he is of a yielding 
nature, a lover of letters, in mind contemplative, although 
in life active; his love of retirement may be wrought 
upon ; the King can remit any fine, and, the means once 
secured to him of learned leisure for the few remaining 
years of his life, he will easily be induced to quit the 
paradise of earthly honours, " 

So spake the prelate, and the voice that promised present 
immunity to the King and his humbled favourite, seemed 
to them the voice of an angel ; but the remedies of a state 
empiric, like those of all empirics, are only immediate 
relief; " they help at a pang, but soon leese their opera* 
tion." (a) 

The King fatally resolved upon this concession, (b) and 
Bacon's remarkable prediction fell upon him and his suc- 

(a) See ante, p. xlvi. 

■(&) The giving them over to the power of the parliament not only 
weakened his own prerogative, but put the House of Commons upon such 
a pin, that they would let no parliament pass (for the times to come) with- 
out some such sacrifice. And so fell Bacon, Lord Chancellor of England, 
Lord Verulam, and Viscount of St. Albans.— Hey lin. 



CCCXllV LIFE OF BACON. 

cessor, " They who will strike at your chancellor will strike 
at your crown." (a) 

There was not any suggestion by Williams that the 
Chancellor could not have anticipated, except the monstrous 
fact that the King and Buckingham were consenting to 
his downfall. Once convinced that his weak and cowardly 
master was not only willing but anxious, to interpose him 
between an enraged people and his culpable favourite, his 
line of conduct became evident: he was as much bound to 
the stake as if already chained there ; and, when the fate 
of Essex and of Somerset recurred to him, he must have 
felt how little dependence could be placed upon court 
favour, and how certain was the utter ruin of a man who 
attempts to oppose a despotic prince. He might well say, 
" he was become clay in the King's hand. "(b) He who is 
robbed of all that constitutes a man, freedom of thought 
and action, which is the breath of his nostrils, becomes 
nothing but a lifeless statue. 
Interview Before the 16th of April the King sent for the Chancellor, 
Jj? t e who instantly prepared minutes for their conference, (c) in 

(«) See postea, account by Bushel. 

(b) See postea, p. cccxlvi. 

(c) Memoranda of what the Lord Chancellor intended to deliver to the 

King, April 16, 1621, upon his first access to his Majesty after his 
troubles. 

That howsoever it goeth with me, I think myself infinitely bound to his 
majesty for admitting me to touch the hem of his garment; and that, 
according to my faith, so be it unto me. That I ought also humbly to 
thank his majesty for that, in that excellent speech of his, which is printed, 
that speech of so great maturity, wherein the elements are so well mingled, 
by kindling affection, by washing away aspersion, by establishing of 
opinion, and yet giving way to opinion, I do find some passages which I 
do construe to my advantage. 

And lastly, that 1 have heard from my friends, that notwithstanding 
these waves of information, his majesty mentions my name with grace and 
favour. 

In the next place, I. am to make an oblation of myself into his majesty's 



CONFERENCE WITH JAMES. CCCxlv 

which he says, " The law of nature teaches me to speak in 
my own defence. With respect to this charge of bribery, 
I am as innocent as any born upon St. Innocent's day : I 



hands, that, as I wrote to him, I am as clay in his hands, his majesty may 
make a vessel of honour or dishonour of me, as I find favour in his eyes 
and that I submit myself wholly to his grace and mercy, and to be governed 
both in my cause and fortunes by his direction, knowing that his heart is 
inscrutable for good. Only I may express myself thus far, that my desire 
is, that the thread, or line, or my life, may be no longer than the thread or 
line of my service : I mean that I may be of use to your majesty in one 
kind or other. 

Now for any further speech, I would humbly pray his majesty, that what- 
soever the law of nature shall teach me to speak for my own preservation, 
your majesty will understand it to be in such sort, as I do nevertheless 
depend wholly upon your will and pleasure. And under this submission, 
if your majesty will graciously give me the hearing, I will open my heart 
unto you, both touching my fault and fortune. 

For the former of these, I shall deal ingenuously with your majesty, 
without seeking fig-leaves or subterfuges. 

There be three degrees or cases, as I conceive, of gifts and rewards given 
to a judge. 

The first is of bargain, contract, or promise of reward, pendente lite. 
And this is properly called venalis sententia, or baratria, or corrupted 
munerum. And of this my heart tells me I am innocent ; that I had no 
bribe or reward in my eye or thought when I pronounced any sentence or 
order. 

The second is a neglect in the judge to inform himself whether the cause 
be fully at an end, or no, what time he receives the gift ; but takes it upon 
the credit of the party that all is done, or otherwise omits to inquire. 

And the third is, when it is received sine fraude, after the cause ended, 
which it seems by the opinion of the civilians is no offence. Look into 
the case of simony, &c. 

Draught of another paper to the same purpose. 

There be three degrees or cases of bribery charged or supposed in a 
judge. 

The first, of bargain or contract, for reward to pervert justice. 

The second, where the judge conceives the cause to be at an end, by the 
information of the party, or otherwise, and useth not such diligence as he 
ought to inquire of it. And the third, when the case is really ended, and 
it is sine fraude, without relation to any precedent promise. 



CCCxlvi LIFE OF BACON. 

never had bribe or reward in my eye or thought when 
pronouncing sentence or order. If, however, it is abso* 
lutely necessary, the King's will shall be obeyed. I am 
ready to make an oblation of myself to the King, in 
whose hands I am as clay, to be made a vessel of honour 
or dishonour/' 

That an interview between the King and Bacon took 
place is clear, from the following entry in the journals of 
the House of Lords of April 17 : 

" The Lord Treasurer signified, that in the interim of 
this cessation, the Lord Chancellor was an humble suitor 
unto his majesty, that he might see his majesty and speak 



Now if I might see the particulars of my charge, I should deal plainly 
with your majesty, in whether of these degrees every particular case falls. 
But for the first of them, I take myself to be as innocent as any born upon 
St. Innocent's day in my heart. For the second, I doubt in some parti- 
culars I may be faulty. And for the last, I conceived it to be no fault; 
but therein I desire to be better informed, that I may be twice penitent ; 
once for the fact, and again for the error. For I had rather be a briber 
than a defender of bribes. 

I must likewise confess to your majesty, that at New-year's tides, and 
likewise at my first coming in (which was, as it were my wedding), I did 
not so precisely, as perhaps I ought, examine whether those that presented 
me had causes before me yea or no. And this is simply all that I can say 
for the present concerning my charge, until I may receive it more particu- 
larly. And all this while, I do not fly to that, as to say that these things 
are vitia temporis, and not vitia hominis. 

For my fortune, summa summorum with me is, that I may not be made 
altogether unprofitable to do your majesty's service or honour. If your 
majesty continue me as I am, I hope I shall be a new man, and shall 
reform things out of feeling, more than another can do out of example. If 
I cast part of my burden, I shall be more strong and delivre to hear the 
rest. And, to tell your majesty what my thoughts run upon, I think of 
writing a story of England, and of recompiling of your laws into a better 
digest. 

But to conclude, I most humbly pray your majesty's directions and 
advice. For as your majesty hath used to give me the attribute of care of 
your business, so I must now cast the care of myself upon God and you. 



CONFERENCE WITH JAMES. CCCxlvil 

with him ; and although his majesty, in respect of the Lord 
Chancellor's person, and of the place he holds, might have 
given his lordship that favour, yet, for that his lordship is 
under the trial of this house, his majesty would not on the 
sudden grant it. 

" That, on Sunday last, the King calling all the lords of 
this house which were of his council before him, it pleased 
his majesty to shew their lordships what was desired by 
the Lord Chancellor, demanding their lordships' advice 
therein. 

" The lords did not presume to advise his majesty; for 
that his majesty did suddenly propound such a course as 
all the world could not advise a better; which was, that 
his majesty would speak with him privately. 

" That yesterday, his majesty admitting the Lord Chan- 
cellor to his presence, his lordship desired that he might 
have a particular of those matters wherewith he is charged 
before the lords of this house ; for that it was not possible 
for him, who passed so many orders and decrees in a year, 
to remember all things that fell out in them; and that, 
this being granted, his lordship would desire two requests 
of his majesty. 1. That, where his answers should be 
fair and clear to those things objected against him, his 
lordship might stand upon his innocency. 2. Where his 
answer should not be so fair and clear, there his lordship 
might be admitted to the extenuation of the charge ; and 
where the proofs were full and undeniable, his lordship 
would ingenuously confess them, and put himself upon the 
mercy of the lords. 

" Unto all which his majesty's answer was, he referred 
him to the lords of this house, and therefore his majesty 
willed his lordship to make report to their lordships. 

* It was thereupon ordered, that the Lord Treasurer 
should signify unto his majesty, that the lords do thank- 



CCCxlviii LIFE OF BACON. 

fully acknowledge his majesty's favour, and hold themselves 
highly bound unto his majesty for the same." 

At this interview the King, who had determined to 
sacrifice the " oracle of his counsel rather than the favourite 
of his affection/' gave him his advice, as it was termed, 
" that he should submit himself to the House of Peers, 
and that upon his princely word he would then restore 
him again, if they in their honours should not be sensible 
of his merits." (a) 

How little this command accorded with the Chancellor's 
intention to defend himself, may be gathered from his 
distress and passionate remonstrance. " I see my ap- 
proaching ruin : there is no hope of mercy in a multitude, 
if I do not plead for myself, when my enemies are to give 
fire. Those who strike at your chancellor will strike at 
your crown." All remonstrance proving fruitless, he took 
leave of the King with these memorable words : " I am 
the first ; I wish I may be the last sacrifice." («) 
April 17, The parts were now cast, and the last act of the drama 

1621 * alone remained to be performed, 
parliament ® n tne l^th °f April the house met, when some account 
of the King's interview with the Chancellor was narrated 
by the Lord Treasurer, and ordered to be entered upon the 
journals of the house; and, a rumour having been circu- 
lated that Buckingham had sent his brother abroad to 
escape inquiry, he protested unto the lords, " that whereas 
the opinion of the world is, that his lordship had sent his 
brother, Sir Edward Villiers abroad in the King's service, 
of purpose to avoid his trial touching some grievances 
complained of by the Commons, his lordship was so far 
from that, that his lordship did hasten his coming home ; (b) 
and, if any thing blame-worthy can be objected against 

. (a) See postea, account by Bushel. (b) Ante, p. cccxi. 



LETTER TO THE KfNG. CCCxlix 

him, his lordship is as ready to censure him as he was 
Mompesson." 

It was then moved by the Earl of Arundel, that the 
three several committees do make their report to-morrow 
morning of the examinations by them taken touching the 
Lord Chancellor. 

On the 20th the Chancellor wrote to the King, to thank April 20. 
him for the goodness manifested in his access on the 16th, 
and expressing an assured hope, that as the King imitated 
Christ by not breaking the broken reed, or quenching the 
smoking flax, so would the lords of the upper house in 
grace and mercy imitate their royal master : (a) and on the 
22nd of April he addressed a letter to the House of Lords, 
which had, of course, been submitted to Buckingham and 
the Kino- and was in due time communicated to their 
lordships by the Prince of Wales. 

In that letter, which can be understood only by those 
who are in possession of the facts now stated, he consented 
to desert his defence ; and that word used by a man so 

(a) The following is the letter : 

" To the King. 

" It may please your most excellent Majesty, — I think myself infinitely 
bounden to your majesty for vouchsafing me access to your royal person, 
and to touch the hem of your garment. I see your majesty imitateth him 
that would not break the broken reed, nor quench the smoking flax; and 
as your majesty imitateth Christ, so I hope assuredly my lords of the 
upper house will imitate you, and unto your majesty's grace and mercy, 
and next to my lords I recommend myself. It is not possible, nor it were 
not safe, for me to answer particulars till I have my charge, which when I 
shall receive, I shall without fig-leaves or disguise excuse what I can 
excuse, and ingenuously confess what I can neither clear nor extenuate. 
And if there be any thing which I might conceive to be no offence, and yet 
is, I desire to be informed, that I may be twice penitent, once for my 
fault, and the second time for my error, and so submitting all that I am to 
your majesty's grace, I rest." 



CCcl LIFE OF BACON. 

rich in language, so felicitous in every shade of expression, 
fully discloses what was passing in his mind. He praised 
the King, chiefly for his mercy, recommended him as an 
example to the lords, and reminded the prelates that they 
were the servants of Christ. He concluded his address 
by intimating what he hoped would be the measure of 
his punishment, but not till he had related some passages, 
from ancient history, in his usual manner, and considered 
the case and its results to society with a degree of philo- 
sophical calmness, which could not possibly contemplate 
the ruin that ensued, or any punishment beyond the loss 
of his office. 

April 24, On the morning of the 24th the King addressed the 
, * house in a speech, which shewed his disposition to meet 

speech. the wishes of the people by admitting, " that as many 
complaints are already made against courts of judicature, 
which are in examination, and are to be proceeded upon 
by the lords, his majesty will add some, which he thinks 
fit to be also complained of and redressed, viz. That no 
orders be made but in public court, and not in chambers ; 
that excessive fees be taken away; that no bribery nor 
money be given for the hearing of any cause. These 
and many other things his majesty thought fit to be 
done this session. And his majesty added, that when he 
hath done this, and all that he can do for the good of his 
subjects, he confesseth he hath done but the duty where- 
unto he was born." — The house then adjourned till the 
afternoon. 

In the afternoon the Prince of Wales " signified unto 
the lords that the Lord Chancellor had sent the folJ owing: 
submission to their lordships : 



LETTER TO LORDS. CCcli 

u To the Right Honourable the Lords of Parliament, Letter to 
in the Upper House assembled. Lords. 

" The humble Submission and Supplication of the Lord 
Chancellor. 

" It may please your Lordships, — I shall humbly crave 
at your lordships' hands a benign interpretation of that 
which I shall now write. For words that come from wasted 
spirits and an oppressed mind are more safe in being 
deposited in a noble construction, than in being circled 
with any reserved caution. 

" This being moved, and, as I hope, obtained, in the 
nature of a protection to all that I shall say, I shall now 
make into the rest of that wherewith I shall at this time 
trouble your lordships a very strange entrance. For, in 
the midst of a state of as great affliction as I think a mortal 
man can endure (honour being above life), I shall begin 
with the professing of gladness in some things. 

" The first is, that hereafter the greatness of a judge or 
magistrate shall be no sanctuary or protection of guiltiness, 
which (in few words) is the beginning of a golden world. 
The next, that, after this example, it is like that judges 
will fly from any thing that is in the likeness of corruption 
(though it were at a great distance) as from a serpent; 
which tendeth to the purging of the courts of justice, and 
the reducing them to their true honour and splendour. 
And in these two points, God is my witness, that, though 
it be my fortune to be the anvil upon which these good 
effects are beaten and wrought, I take no small comfort. 

" But, to pass from the motions of my heart, whereof 
God is only judge, to the merits of my cause, whereof your 
lordships are judges, under God and his lieutenant, I do 
understand there hath been heretofore expected from me 
some justification; and therefore I have chosen one only 



CCclii LIFE OF BACON. 

justification instead of all other, out of the justifications of 
Job. For, after the clear submission and confession which 
I shall now make unto your lordships, I hope I may say 
and justify with Job, in these words: ' I have not hid 
my sin as did Adam, nor concealed my faults in my bosom.' 
This is the only justification which I will use. 

" It resteth, therefore, that without fig-leaves I do 
ingenuously confess and acknowledge that, having under- 
stood the particulars of the charge, not formally from the 
house, but enough to inform my conscience and memory, 
I find matter sufficient and full both to move me to desert 
the defence, and to move your lordships to condemn and 
censure me. Neither will I trouble your lordships by 
singling those particulars, which I think may fall off, 

Quid te exempta juvat spinis de pluribus una ? 

Neither will I prompt your lordships to observe upon the 
proofs, where they come not home, or the scruples touching 
the credits of the witnesses ; neither will I represent unto 
your lordships how far a defence might, in divers things, 
extenuate the offence, in respect of the time or manner of 
the gift, or the like circumstances, but only leave these 
things to spring out of your own noble thoughts and 
observations of the evidence and examinations themselves, 
and charitably to wind about the particulars of the charge 
here and there, as God shall put into your mind, and so 
submit myself wholly to your piety and grace. 

" And now that I have spoken to your lordships as 
j udges, I shall say a few words to you as peers and prelates, 
humbly commending my cause to your noble minds and 
magnanimous affections. 

" Your lordships are not simple judges, but parlia- 
mentary j udges ; you have a further extent of arbitrary 
power than other courts; and, if your lordships be not tied 



LETTER TO LORDS. CCcliii 

by the ordinary course of courts or precedents, in points of 
strictness and severity, much more in points of mercy and 
mitigation. 

" And yet, if any thing which I shall move might be 
contrary to your honourable and worthy ends to introduce 
a reformation, I should not seek it. But herein I beseech 
your lordships to give me leave to tell you a story. Titus 
Manlius took his son's life for giving battle against the 
prohibition of his general ; not many years after, the like 
severity was pursued by Papirius Cursor, the dictator, 
against Quintus Maximus, who being upon the point to 
be sentenced, by the intercession of some principal persons 
of the senate, was spared ; whereupon Livy maketh this 
grave and gracious observation: Neque minus fir mat a est 
disciplina militaris periculo Quinti Maximi, quam miserabili 
supplicio Titi Manlii. The discipline of war was no less 
established by the questioning of Quintus Maximus than 
by the punishment of Titus Manlius : and the same reason 
is of the reformation of justice; for the questioning of men 
of eminent place hath the same terror, though not the 
same rigour with the punishment. 

" But my case standeth not there. For my humble 
desire is, that his majesty would take the seal into his 
hands, which is a great downfall ; and may serve, I hope, 
in itself for an expiation of my faults. Therefore, if mercy 
and mitigation be in your power, and do no ways cross 
your ends, why should I not hope of your lordships' favour 
and commiseration ? 

" Your lordships will be pleased to behold your chief 
pattern, the King our sovereign, a king of incomparable 
clemency, and whose heart is inscrutable for wisdom and 
goodness. Your lordships will remember that there sat 
not these hundred years before a prince in your house, and 
never such a prince whose presence deserveth to be made 

vol. xv. a a 



CCcliv LIFE OF BACON. 

memorable by records and acts mixed of mercy and justice ; 
yourselves are either nobles (and compassion ever beateth 
in the veins of noble blood) or reverend prelates, who are 
the servants of Him that would not break the bruised reed, 
nor quench smoking flax. You all sit upon one high 
stage; and therefore cannot but be more sensible of the 
changes of the world, and of the fall of any of high place. 
Neither will your lordships forget that there are vitia 
temporis as well as vitia liominis, and that the beginning 
of reformations hath the contrary power of the pool of 
Bethesda j for that had strength to cure only him that was 
first cast in, and this hath commonly strength to hurt him 
only that is first cast in ; and for my part, I wish it may 
stay there, and go no further. 

" Lastly, I assure myself your lordships have a noble 
feeling of me, as a member of your own body, and one 
that, in this very session, had some taste of your loving 
affections, which, I hope, was not a lightening before the 
death of them, but rather a spark of that grace, which now 
in the conclusion will more appear. 

" And therefore my humble suit to your lordships is, 
that my penitent submission may be my sentence, and the 
loss of the seal my punishment ; and that your lordships 
will spare any further sentence, but recommend me to his 
majesty's grace and pardon for all that is past. God's 
holy spirit be amongst you. Your Lordships' humble 
servant and suppliant, Fr. St. Alban, Cane." 

April 22, 1621. 

Although the King and Buckingham hoped that this 
general submission would be satisfactory, the agitation was 
too great to be thus easily quieted. It was, after delibera- 
tion, resolved that the Lord Chancellor's submission gave 
not satisfaction to their lordships, for that his lordship's 



lords' dissatisfaction. ccclv 

confession therein was not fully nor particularly set down, 
and for many other exceptions against the submission 
itself, the same in sort extenuating his confession, and his 
lordship seeming to prescribe the sentence to be given 
against him by the house. 

Their lordships resolved, that the Lord Chancellor should 
be charged particularly with the briberies and corruptions 
complained of against him, and that his lordship should 
make a particular answer thereunto. It was, therefore, 
ordered that the particulars of the charge be sent to the 
Lord Chancellor, and that the lords do expect his answer 
to the same with all convenient expedition. They were 
sent accordingly, (a) 

(a) They are subjoined. They are twenty-three in 
number, expanded by the Chancellor to twenty-eight. 

1. In the cause between Sir Rowland Egerton, knt. and 
Edward Egerton, the Lord Chancellor received five hundred 
pounds, on the part of Sir Rowland Egerton, before he 
decreed the same ; proved by the depositions of Sir Row- 
land Egerton : of John Brooke, who deposeth to the pro- 
viding of the money, of purpose to be given to the Lord 
Chancellor, and that the same is delivered to Mr. Thelwall, 
to deliver to the Lord Chancellor : of Bevis Thelwall, who 
delivered the five hundred pounds to the Lord Chancellor. 

He received from Edward Egerton, in the said cause, 
four hundred pounds; proved by the depositions of Sir 
Richard Young, knight, Sir George Hastings, knight, 
Rolphe Merefeild, and Tristram Woodward. 

2. In the cause between Hody and Hody, he received a 
dozen of buttons, of the value of fifty pounds, a fortnight 
after the cause was ended ; proved by the depositions of 
Sir Thomas Perient, knight, and John Churchill, who 
speaks of a greater value, by the report of Hody. 

3. In the cause between the Lady Wharton and the 
coheirs of Sir Francis Willoughby, he received of the Lady 



CCclvi LIFE OF BACON". 

This fatal result was instantly communicated to the 
Chancellor by his faithful attendant, Bushel, (a) He pro- 
ceeded, therefore, to a minute answer to each particular 

Wharton three hundred and ten pounds; proved by the 
depositions of the Lady Wharton, Richard Keeling, and 
Anthony Gardiner. 

4. In Sir Thomas Muncke's cause, he received from Sir 
Thomas, by the hands of Sir Henry Helmes, an hundred 
and ten pounds; but this was three quarters of a year 
after the suit; proved by the deposition of Sir Henry 
Helmes. 

5. In the cause between Sir John Trevor and Ascue, he 
received, on the part of Sir John Trevor, an hundred pounds, 
proved by the depositions of Richard Keeling. 

6. In the cause between Holman and Young, he received 
of Young an hundred pounds, after the decree made for 
him ; proved by the depositions of Richard Keeling. 

7. In the cause between Fisher and Wrenham, the Lord 
Chancellor, after the decree passed, received from Fisher a 
suit of hangings, worth an hundred and sixty pounds and 
better, which Fisher gave by the advice of Mr. Shute; 
proved by the deposition of Sir Edward Fisher. 

8. In the cause between Kennedey and Vanlore, he 
received from Kennedey a rich cabinet, valued at eight 
hundred pounds; proved by the deposition of James 
Kennedey. 

9. He borrowed of Vanlore a thousand pounds, upon his 
own bond, at one time, and the like sum at another time, 
upon his lordship's own bill, subscribed by Mr. Hunt, his 
man ; proved by the depositions of Peter Vanlore. 

10. He received of Richard Scott two hundred pounds 
after his cause was ended ; but, upon a precedent promise, 
all which was transacted by Mr. Shute; proved by the 
deposition of Richard Scott. 

(a) See postea, account by Bushel. 



PARTICULAR ANSWERS. CCclvii 

charge, which he so framed that future ages might see the 
times when the presents were made, and the persons by 
whom they were offered. 

He received, in the same cause, on Sir John Lenthall's 
part, a hundred pounds; proved by the deposition 
Edward Shereborne. 

11. He received of Mr. Wroth a hundred pounds, in 
respect of the cause between him and Sir Arthur Maine- 
waring; proved by the depositions of John Churchill and 
John Hunt. 

12. He received of Sir Ralph Hansby, having a cause 
depending before him, five hundred pounds; proved by 
the depositions of Sir Ralph Hansby. 

13. William Compton, being to have an extent for a debt 
of twelve hundred pounds, the Lord Chancellor stayed it, 
and wrote his letter, upon which part of the debt was paid 
presently, and part at a future day ; the Lord Chancellor 
hereupon sends to borrow five hundred pounds; and, be- 
cause Compton was to pay to one Huxley four hundred 
pounds, his lordship requires Huxley to forbear it for six 
months, and thereupon obtains the money from Compton. 
The money being unpaid, suit grows between Huxley and 
Compton in Chancery, where his lordship decrees Compton 
to pay Huxley the debt, with damages and costs, where it 
was in his own hands ; proved by the depositions of 
William Compton. 

14. In the cause between Sir William Bronker and 
Awbrey, the Lord Chancellor received from Awbrey an 
hundred pounds ; proved by the depositions of Christopher 
Awbrey, Sir George Hastings, and the letters to the Lord 
Chancellor from Awbrey. 

15. In the Lord Mountague's cause, he received from 
the Lord Mountague six or seven hundred pounds, and 
more was to be paid at the ending of the cause ; proved 
by the depositions of Bevis Thelwall. 



CCclvili LIKE OF BACON. 

April 30. On the 30th of April, the Lord Chief Justice signified 
that he had received from the Lord Chancellor a paper roll, 



16. In the cause of Mr. Bunch, he received from Mr. 
Dunch two hundred pounds ; proved by the depositions of 
Bevis ThelwalL 

17. In the cause between Reynell and Peacock, the 
Lord Chancellor received from Reynell two hundred pounds, 
and a diamond ring worth five or six hundred pounds; 
proved by the depositions of John Hunt and Sir George 
Reynell. 

He took of Peacock an hundred pounds, and borrowed 
a thousand pounds, without security, interest, or time of 
re-payment; proved by the depositions of William Peacock 
and James Rolf. 

18. In the cause between Smith wick and Wych, he 
received from Smith wick two hundred pounds, which was 
repaid ; proved by the depositions of John Hunt. 

19. In the cause of Sir Henry Russwell, he received 
money from Russwell; but it is not certain how much; 
proved by the depositions of John Hunt. 

20. In the cause of Mr. Barker, the Lord Chancellor 
received from Barker seven hundred pounds; proved by 
the depositions of Robert Barker and Edward Shereburne. 

21. There being a reference from his majesty to his 
lordship of a business between the Grocers and Apothe- 
caries of London, he received of the Grocers two hundred 
pounds ; proved by the depositions of Sir Thomas Midleton, 
Alderman Johnson, and John Bunbury. 

He received in the same cause of the Apothecaries, that 
stood with the Grocers, a taster of gold, worth between 
forty or fifty pounds, together with a present of amber- 
grease ; proved by the depositions of Sir Thomas Midleton 
and Samuel Jones. 

He received of the new company of Apothecaries, that 
stood against the Grocers, an hundred pounds; proved by 
the depositions of John Kellet and Gabriel Sheriff. 



CONFESSION. CCCI 



LX 



sealed up, which was delivered to the clerk; and being 
opened, and found directed to their lordships, it was read : 

" To the Right Honourable the Lords Spiritual and Tem- 
poral, in the High Court of Parliament assembled. 

" The Confession and Humble Submission of me, the Lord 
Chancellor. 

" Upon advised consideration of the charge, descending 
into my own conscience, and calling my memory to account 
so far as I am able, I do plainly and ingenuously confess 
that I am guilty of corruption, and do renounce all de- 
fence, and put myself upon the grace and mercy of your 
lordships. 

" The particulars I confess and declare to be as followeth : 
" 1. To the first article of the charge, viz. in the cause Egerton 
between Sir Rowland Egerton and Edward Egerton, the ™ t 
Lord Chancellor received five hundred pounds on the part 
of Sir Rowland Egerton, before he decreed the cause : I do 

22. He took of the French merchants a thousand pounds 
to constrain the Vintners of London to take from them 
fifteen hundred tuns of wine ; proved by the depositions of 
Robert Bell, William Spright, and Richard Peacock. To 
accomplish which, he used very indirect means, by colour 
of his office and authority, without bill or suit depending ; 
terrifying the Vintners, by threats and imprisonments of 
their persons, to buy wines, whereof they had no need nor 
use, at higher rates than they were vendible; proved by 
the depositions of John Child, Henry Ashton, Thomas 
Haselfote, Raphe Moore, Thomas Knight, and his own 
letters and orders. 

23. The Lord Chancellor hath given way to great exac- 
tions by his servants, both in respect of private seals, and 
likewise for sealing of injunctions, and otherwise; proved 
by the depositions of Thomas Manwood and Richard 
Keeling. 



Ccclx LIFE OF BACON. 

confess and declare, that upon a reference from his majesty 
of all suits and controversies between Sir Rowland Egerton 
and Mr. Edward Egerton, both parties submitted them- 
selves to my award, by recognizance reciprocal in ten 
thousand marks a-piece. Thereupon, after divers hearings, 
I made my award, with advice and consent of my Lord 
Hobart. The award was perfected and published to the 
parties, which was in February ; then, some days after, 
the five hundred pounds mentioned in the charge was 
delivered unto me. Afterwards Mr. Edward Egerton fled 
off from the award ; then, in Midsummer term following, a 
suit was begun in Chancery by Sir Rowland, to have the 
award confirmed ; and upon that suit was the decree made 
which is mentioned in the article. 

" 2. To the second article of the charge, viz. in the same 
cause he received from Edward Egerton four hundred 
pounds : I confess and declare, that, soon after my first 
coming to the seal (being a time when I was presented by 
many), the four hundred pounds mentioned in the charge 
was delivered unto me in a purse, and I now call to mind, 
from Mr. Edward Egerton ; but, as far as I can remember, 
it was expressed by them that brought it to be for favours 
past, and not in respect to favours to come. 
Hody and " 3. To the third article of the charge, viz. in the cause 
between Hody and Hody, he received a dozen of buttons, 
of the value of fifty pounds, about a fortnight after the 
cause was ended : I confess and declare, that, as it is laid 
in the charge, about a fortnight after the cause was ended 
(it being a suit of a great inheritance), there were gold 
buttons about the value of fifty pounds, as is mentioned in 
the charge, presented unto me, as I remember, by Sir 
Thomas Perient and the party himself. 
Wharton " 4. To the fourth article of the charge, viz. in the cause 
lougbbv between the Lady Wharton and the co-heirs of Sir Francis 



CONFESSION. CCclxi 

Willoughby, he received of the Lady Wharton three hundred 
and ten pounds : I confess and declare, that I received of 
the Lady Wharton, at two several times (as I remember) in 
gold, two hundred pounds and an hundred pieces, and this 
was certainly pendente lite; but yet I have a vehement 
suspicion that there was some shuffling between Mr. Shute 
and the Register, in entering some orders, which afterwards 
I did distaste. 

" 5. To the fifth article of the charge, viz. in Sir Thomas Monk. 
Monk's cause, he received from Sir Thomas Monk, by 
the hands of Sir Henry Helmes, an hundred and ten 
pounds; but this was three quarters of a year after the 
suit was ended : I confess it to be true, that I received an 
hundred pieces ; but it was long after the suit ended, as is 
contained in the charge. 

" 6. To the sixth article of the charge, viz. in the cause Treavor 
between Sir John Treavor and Ascue, he received, on the 
part of Sir John Treavor, an hundred pounds : I confess 
and declare, that I received at New Year's-tide an hundred 
pounds from Sir John Treavor ; and because it came as a 
New Year's gift, I neglected to inquire whether the cause 
was ended or depending ; but since I find, that though the 
cause was then dismissed to a trial at law, yet the equity 
is reserved, so as it was in that kind pendente lite. 

" 7. To the seventh article of the charge, viz. in the Holman 
cause between Holman and Young, he received of Young and* ™ 1 ?- 
an hundred pounds, after the decree made for him : I con- 
fess and declare, that, as I remember, a good while after 
the cause ended, I received an hundred pounds, either by 
Mr. Tobie Matthew, or from Young himself; but whereas 
I understood that there was some money given by Holman 
to my servant Hatcher, with that certainly I was never 
made privy. 

" 8. To the eighth article of the charge, viz. in the cause 



CCclxii LIFE OF BACON. 

Fisher and between Fisher and Wrenham, the Lord Chancellor, after 
' the decree passed, received from Fisher a suit of hangings, 
worth an hundred and sixty pounds and better, which 
Fisher gave by advice of Mr. Shute : I confess and declare, 
that some time after the decree passed, I being at that time 
upon remove to York House, I did receive a suit of hangings 
of the value, I think, mentioned in the charge, by Mr. Shute, 
as from Sir Edward Fisher, towards the furnishing of my 
house, as some others that were no way suitors did present 
me the like about that time. 
Kennedey " 9. To the ninth article of the charge, viz. in the cause 
lore an ~ between Kennedey and Vanlore, he received a rich cabinet 
from Kennedey, prized at eight hundred pounds : I confess 
and declare, that such a cabinet was brought to my house, 
though nothing near half the value ; and that I said to him 
that brought it, that I came to view it, and not to receive 
it ; and gave commandment that it should be carried back, 
and was offended when I heard it was not ; and some year 
and an half after, as I remember, Sir John Kennedey 
having all that time refused to take it away, as I am told 
by my servants, I was petitioned by one Pinckney, that it 
might be delivered to him, for that he stood engaged for 
the money that Sir John Kennedey paid for it. And there- 
upon Sir John Kennedey wrote a letter to my servant 
Shereborne with his own hand, desiring that I would not 
do him that disgrace as to return that gift back, much less 
to put it into a wrong hand ; and so it remains yet ready 
to be returned to whom your lordships shall appoint. 

" 10. To the tenth article of the charge, viz. he borrowed 
of Vanlore a thousand pounds, upon his own bond, at one 
time, and the like sum at another time, upon his lordship's 
own bill, subscribed by Mr. Hunt, his man: I confess and 
declare, that I borrowed the money in the article set down, 
and that this is a true debt. And I remember well that I 



confession. ccclxiii 

wrote a letter from Kew, above a twelvemonth since, to a 
friend about the King, wherein I desired that, whereas I 
owed Peter Vanlore two thousand pounds, his majesty 
w r ould be pleased to grant me so much out of his fine set 
upon him in the Star Chamber. 

"11. To the eleventh article of the charge, viz. he Scott, 
received of Richard Scott two hundred pounds, after his 
cause was decreed (but upon a precedent promise), all 
which was transacted by Mr. Shute : I confess and declare, 
that some fortnight after, as I remember that the decree 
passed, I received two hundred pounds, as from Mr. Scott, 
by Mr. Shute; but, for any precedent promise or trans- 
action by Mr. Shute, certain I am I knew of none. 

" 12. To the twelfth article of the charge, viz, he Lentall. 
received in the same cause, on the part of Sir John 
Lentall, an hundred pounds : I confess and declare, that 
some months after, as I remember, that the decree passed, 
I received an hundred pounds by my servant Shereburne, 
as from Sir John Lentall, who was not the adverse party 
to Scott, but a third person, relieved by the same decree, 
in the suit of one Powre. 

" 13. To the thirteenth article of the charge, viz. he Wroth and 
received of Mr. Wroth an hundred pounds, in respect of ^JT^ 
the cause between him and Sir Arthur Maynewaringe : I 
confess and declare, that this cause, being a cause for 
inheritance of good value, was ended by my arbitrament, 
and consent of parties ; and so a decree passed of course. 
And some month after the cause thus ended, the hundred 
pounds mentioned in the article was delivered to me by 
my servant Hunt. 

" 14. To the fourteenth article of the charge, viz. he Hansby. 
received of Sir Raphe Hansby, having a cause depending 
before him, five hundred pounds : I confess and declare, 
that there were two decrees, one, as I remember, for the 



CCclxiv LIFE OF BACON. 

inheritance, and the other for goods and chattels, but all 
upon one bill ; and some good time after the first decree, 
and before the second, the said five hundred pounds were 
delivered me by Mr. Tobie Matthew, so as I cannot deny 
but it was upon the matter, pendente lite. 

" 15. To the fifteenth article of the charge, viz. William 

Compton. Compton being to have an extent for a debt of one 
thousand and two hundred pounds, the Lord Chancellor 
stayed it, and wrote his letter, upon which part of the debt 
was paid presently, and part at a future day. The Lord 
Chancellor hereupon sends to borrow five hundred pounds ; 
and because Compton was to pay four hundred pounds to 
one Huxley, his lordship requires Huxley to forbear it six 
months, and thereupon obtains the money from Compton. 
The money being unpaid, suit grows between Huxley and 
Compton in Chancery, where his lordship decrees Compton 
to pay Huxley the debt, with damages and costs, when it 
was in his own hands: I declare, that in my conscience, 
the stay of the extent was just, being an extremity against 
a nobleman, by whom Compton could be no loser. The 
money was plainly borrowed of Compton upon bond with 
interest ; and the message to Huxley was only to intreat 
him to give Compton a longer day, and in no sort to make 
me debtor or responsible to Huxley ; and, therefore, though 
I were not ready to pay Compton his money, as I would 
have been glad to have done, save only one hundred 
pounds, which is paid ; I could not deny justice to Huxley, 
in as ample manner as if nothing had been between 
Compton and me. But, if Compton hath been damnified 
in my respect, I am to consider it to Compton. 

Awbrey. " 16. To the sixteenth article of the charge, viz. in 
the cause between Sir William Bronker and Awbrey, the 
Lord Chancellor received from Awbrey an hundred 
pounds: I do confess and declare, that the money was 



CONFESSION. CCCIXV 

given and received; but the manner of it I leave to the 
witnesses. 

" 17. To the seventeenth article of the charge, viz. in Mounta- 
the Lord Mountague's cause, he received from the Lord 8 
Mountague six or seven hundred pounds ; and more was 
to be paid at the ending of the cause: I confess and 
declare, there was money given, and (as I remember) by- 
Mr. Bevis Thelwall, to the sum mentioned in the article 
after the cause was decreed ; but I cannot say it was 
ended, for there have been many orders since, caused by 
Sir Frauncis Englefeild's contempts ; and I do remember 
that, when Thelwall brought the money, he said, that my 
lord would be further thankful if he could once get his 
quiet ; to which speech I gave little regard. 

" 18. To the eighteenth article of the charge, viz. in the Dunch. 
cause of Mr. Dunch, he received of Mr. Dunch two 
hundred pounds : I confess and declare, that it was 
delivered by Mr. Thelwall to Hatcher my servant, for me, 
as I think, some time after the decree ; but I cannot 
precisely inform myself of the time. 

" 19. To the nineteenth article of the charge, viz. in the Reynell 
cause between Reynell and Peacock, he received from p eacoc k. 
Reynell two hundred pounds, and a diamond ring worth 
five or six hundred pounds : I confess and declare, that, at 
my first coming to the seal, when I was at Whitehall, my 
servant Hunt delivered me two hundred pounds, from Sir 
George Reynell, my near ally, to be bestowed upon 
furniture of my house; adding further, that he received 
divers former favours from me; and this was, as I verily 
think, before any suit begun. The ring was received 
certainly pendente lite ; and, though it were at New year's- 
tide, yet it was too great a value for a New year's gift, 
though, as I take it, nothing near the value mentioned in 
the article. 



CCC1XV1 



LIFE OF BACON. 



" 20. To the twentieth article of the charge, viz. he took 
of Peacock an hundred pounds, and borrowed a thousand 
pounds, without interest, security, or time of payment : I 
confess and declare, that I received of Mr. Peacock an 
hundred pounds at Dorset House, at my first coming to 
the seal, as a present; at which time no suit was begun ; 
and that, the summer after, I sent my then servant Lister 
to Mr. Rolf, my good friend and neighbour, at St. Albans, 
to use his means with Mr. Peacock (who was accounted a 
monied man), for the borrowing of five hundred pounds ; 
and after, by my servant Hatcher, for borrowing of five 
hundred pounds more, which Mr. Rolf procured, and told 
me, at both times, that it should be without interest, 
script, or note ; and that I should take my own time for 
payment of it. 
Smithwick "21. To the one and twentieth article of the charge, 
viz. in the cause between Smithwick and Wyche, he 
received from Smithwick two hundred pounds, which was 
repaid : I confess and declare, that my servant Hunt did, 
upon his accompt, being my receiver of the fines of 
original writs, charge himself with two hundred pounds, 
formerly received of Smithwick, which after that I had 
understood the nature of it, I ordered him to repay it, and 
to defaulk it of his accompt. 

" 22. To the two and twentieth article of the charge, 
viz. in the cause of Sir Henry Russwell, he received money 
from Russwell ; but it is not certain how much : I confess 
and declare, that I received money from my servant Hunt, 
as from Mr. Russwell, in a purse ; and, whereas the sum 
in the article is indefinite, I confess it to be three or four 
hundred pounds ; and it was about some months after the 
cause was decreed, in which decree I was assisted by two 
of the judges. 

" 23. To the three and twentieth article of the charge, 



and 
Wyche 



Russwell. 



Barker. 



confession. ccclxvii 

viz. in the cause of Mr. Barker, the Lord Chancellor 
received from Barker seven hundred pounds : I confess 
and declare, that the money mentioned in the article was 
received from Mr. Barker, some time after the decree 
passed. 

" 24. To the four and twentieth article, five and twentieth, Apothe- 
and six and twentieth articles of the charge, viz. the four Queers, 
and twentieth, there being a reference from his majesty to 
his lordship of a business between the Grocers and the 
Apothecaries, the Lord Chancellor received of the Grocers 
two hundred pounds. The five and twentieth article : in 
the same cause, he received of the Apothecaries that stood 
with the Grocers, a taster of gold, worth between forty 
and fifty pounds, and a present of ambergrease. And the 
six and twentieth article : he received of the New Company 
of the Apothecaries that stood against the Grocers, an 
hundred pounds : To these I confess and declare, that the 
several sums from the three parties were received; and 
for that it was no judicial business, but a concord, or 
composition between the parties, and that as I thought all 
had received good, and they were all three common purses, 
I thought it the less matter to receive that which they 
voluntarily presented ; for if I had taken it in the nature 
of a corrupt bribe, I knew it could not be concealed, 
because it must needs be put to accompt to the three 
several companies. 

" 27. To the seven and twentieth article of the charge, Vintners. 
viz. he took of the French merchants a thousand pounds, 
to constrain the vintners of London to take from them 
fifteen hundred tons of wine; to accomplish which, he 
used very indirect means, by colour of his office and 
authority, without bill or suit depending ; terrifying the 
vintners, by threats and imprisonments of their persons, to 
buy wines, whereof they had no need or use, at higher 



CCclxviii LIFE OF BACON. 

rates than they were vendible : I do confess and declare, 
that Sir Thomas Smith did deal with me in the behalf of 
the French company; informing me, that the vintners, 
by combination, would not take off their wines at any 
reasonable prices. That it would destroy their trade, and 
stay their voyage for that year ; and that it was a fair 
business, and concerned the state; and he doubted not 
but I should receive thanks from the King, and honour by 
it; and that they would gratify me with a thousand 
pounds for my travel in it ; whereupon I treated between 
them, by way of persuasion, and (to prevent any com- 
pulsory suit) propounding such a price as the vintners 
might be gainers six pounds a ton, as it was then main- 
tained to me; and after, the merchants petitioning to the 
King, and his majesty recommending the business unto 
me, as a business that concerned his customs and the 
navy, I dealt more earnestly and peremptorily in it; and, 
as I think, restrained in the messengers' hands for a day 
or two some that were the more stiff; and afterwards the 
merchants presented me with a thousand pounds out of 
their common purse; acknowledging themselves that I 
had kept them from a kind of ruin, and still maintaining 
to me that the vintners, if they were not insatiably minded, 
had a very competent gain. This is the merits of the 
cause, as it then appeared unto me. 
Servants. " 28. To the eight and twentieth article of the charge, 
viz. the Lord Chancellor hath given way to great exactions 
by his servants, both in respect of private seals, and 
otherwise for sealing of injunctions : I confess, it was a 
great fault of neglect in me, that I looked no better to my 
servants. 

" This declaration I have made to your lordships with a 
sincere mind ; humbly craving, that if there should be any 
mistaking, your lordships would impute it to want of 
memory, and not to any desire of mine to obscure truth, 



LETTER TO THE LORDS. CCclxix 

or palliate any thing: for I do again confess, that in the 
points charged upon me, although they should be taken 
as myself have declared them, there is a great deal of 
corruption and neglect, for which I am heartily and 
penitently sorry, and submit myself to the judgment, 
grace, and mercy of the court. 

u For extenuation, I will use none concerning the 
matters themselves; only it may please your lordships, 
out of your nobleness, to cast your eyes of compassion 
upon my person and estate. I was never noted for an 
avaricious man. And the apostle saith, that covetousness 
is the root of all evil. I hope also, that your lordships do 
the rather find me in the state of grace ; for that, in all 
these particulars, there are few or none that are not 
almost two years old, whereas those that have an habit of 
corruption do commonly wax worse and worse ; so that it 
hath pleased God to prepare me, by precedent degrees of 
amendment, to my present penitency. And for my estate, 
it is so mean and poor, as my care is now chiefly to satisfy 
my debts. 

"And so, fearing I have troubled your lordships too 
long, I shall conclude with an humble suit unto you, that 
if your lordships proceed to sentence, your sentence may 
not be heavy to my ruin, but gracious, and mixed with 
mercy; and not only so, but that you would be noble 
intercessors for me to his majesty likewise, for his grace 
and favour. Your Lordships' humble servant and suppliant, 

"Fr. St. Alban, Cane." 

This confession and submission being read, it was agreed 
that certain lords (a) do go unto the Lord Chancellor, and 



(a) L. Chamberlain, E. of Arundel, E. of Southampton, L.Bp. of Durham, 
L. Bp. of Winton, L. Bp. of Co. and Lich., L. Wentworth, L. Cromwell, 
L. ShefTeild, L. North, L. Chandois, and L. Hunsdon. 
vol. xv. b b 



CCCIXX LIFE OF BACON. 

shew him the said confession ; and tell him, that the lords 
do conceive it to be an ingenuous and full confession, and 
demand whether it be his own hand that is subscribed to 
the same; and their lordships being returned, reported, 
that the Lord Chancellor said, " It is my act, my hand, 
my heart. I beseech your lordships, be merciful unto a 
broken reed." 
May 2. On the 2nd of May, the seals having been sequestered, 
the house resolved to proceed to judgment on the next 
day. (a) 
Letter to In this interval, on the evening of the 2nd of May, the 
the King. Chancellor wrote to the King, " to save him from the 
sentence, to let the cup pass from him ; for if it is reforma- 
tion that is sought, taking the seals will, with the general 
submission, be sufficient atonement." (b) 

(a) Agreed to proceed to sentence the Lord Chancellor to-morrow 
morning; wherefore the gentleman usher and the serjeant at arms, attend- 
ants on this house, were commanded to go and summon him the Lord 
Chancellor to appear here in person to-morrow morning, by nine of the 
clock ; and the serjeant was commanded to take his mace with him, and 
to shew it unto his lordship at the said summons. They found him sick in 
bed; and being summoned, he answered that he was sick, and protested 
that he feigned not this for any excuse ; for if he had been well, he would 
willingly have come. The Lords resolved to proceed notwithstanding 
against the said Lord Chancellor ; and therefore, on Thursday, the third of 
May, their lordships sent their message unto the Commons to this purpose. 

(b) The following is the letter : 

It may please your Majesty, — It hath pleased God for 
these three days past, to visit me with such extremity 
of headach upon the hinder part of my head, fixed in one 
place, that I thought verily it had been some imposthu- 
mation ; and then the little physic that I have told me that 
either it must grow to a congelation, and so to a lethargy, 
or to break, and so to a mortal fever or sudden death; 
which apprehension, and chiefly the anguish of the pain, 
made me unable to think of any business. But now that 
the pain itself is assuaged to be tolerable, I resume the care 



LETTER TO THE KING. Ccdxxi 

These his last hopes were vain: the King did not, he 
could not interpose. 



of my business, and therein prostrate myself again, by my 
letter at your majesty's feet. 

Your majesty can bear me witness, that at my last so 
comfortable access, I did not so much as move your majesty 
by your absolute power of pardon, or otherwise, to take 
my cause into your hands, and to interpose between the 
sentence of the house. And according to my desire, your 
majesty left it to the sentence of the house by my Lord 
Treasurer's report. 

But now if not per omnipotentiam, as the divines say, 
but per potestatem suaviter disponentem, your majesty will 
graciously save me from a sentence, with the good liking 
of the house, and that cup may pass from me, it is the 
utmost of my desires. This I move with the more belief, 
because I assure myself, that if it be reformation that is 
sought, the very taking away of the seal, upon my general 
submission, will be as much in example, for these four 
hundred years, as any further severity. 

The means of this I most humbly leave unto your 
majesty, but surely I should conceive, that your majesty 
opening yourself in this kind to the Lords, Counsellors, 
and a motion of the Prince, after my submission, and my 
Lord Marquis using his interest with his friends in the 
house, may affect the sparing of the sentence : I making 
my humble suit to the house for that purpose, joined with 
the delivery up of the seal into your majesty's hands. 
This is my last suit that I shall make to your majesty in 
this business, prostrating myself at your mercy-seat, after 
fifteen years' service, wherein I have served your majesty 
in my poor endeavours, with an entire heart. And, as I 
presume to say unto your majesty, am still a virgin, for 
matters that concern your person or crown, and now only 
craving that after eight steps of honour, I be not precipitated 
altogether. 



CCclxxii LIFE OF BACON. 

May 3. On the 3rd of May the Lords adjudged, " that, upon his 

Sentence. own con f ess i on> they had found him guilty : and therefore 
that he shall undergo fine and ransom of forty thousand 
pounds; be imprisoned in the Tower during the King's 
pleasure ; be for ever incapable of any office, place, or em- 
ployment in the state or commonwealth ; and shall never 
sit in parliament, nor come within the verge of the court." 

Thus fell from the height of worldly prosperity Francis 
Lord Chancellor of Great Britain. 

His The cause of his having deserted his defence he never 

silence. 

revealed. He patiently endured the agony of uncommuni- 

cated grief, (a) He confidently relied upon the justice of 

future ages. There are, however, passages in his writings 

where his deep feeling of the injury appear. 

In his Advancement of Learning we are admonished that, 
" Words best disclose our minds when we are agitated, 

Vino tortus et ira ; 
for, as Proteus never changed shapes till he was straitened 
and held fast with cords, so our nature appears most fully 
in trials and vexations." (b) 



But because he that hath taken bribes is apt to give 
bribes, I will go further, and present your majesty with 
bribe; for if your majesty give me peace and leisure, and 
God give me life, I will present you with a good History 
of England, and a better Digest of your Laws. And so 
concluding with my prayers, I rest 

Clay in your Majesty's hands, 
May 2, 1621. Fr. St. Alban. 

(a) See Essay on Friendship, vol. i. 

(b) The following is the passage : — " As for words, though they be, like 
waters to physicians, full or flattery and uncertainty, yet they are not to be 
despised, specially with the advantage of passion and affection. For so we 



LETTERS AFTER SENTENCE. CCclxxiil 

By observing his words in moments of agitation the 
state of his mind is manifest. 

When imprisoned in the Tower, he instantly wrote to Letter from 
Buckingham, saying, " However I have acknowledged tne Tower 
that the sentence is just, and for reformation sake fit, I 
have been a trusty and honest, and Christ-loving friend to 
your lordship, and the justest chancellor that hath been 
in the five changes since my father's time." (b) 

In another letter, " God is my witness that, when I 
examine myself, I find all well, and that I have approved 
myself to your lordship a true friend both in the watery 
trial of prosperity and in the fiery trial of adversity :" (c) 
" I hope his majesty may reap honour out of my adversity, 
as he hath done strength out of my prosperity." (d) 

" For the briberies and gifts wherewith I am charged, Letter to 
when the book of hearts shall be opened, I hope I shall g ' 

not be found to have the troubled fountain of a corrupt 
heart, in a depraved habit of taking rewards to pervert 
justice; howsoever I may be frail, and partake of the 
abuses of the times," was his expression in the midst of 
his agony, (e) 

see Tiberius, upon a stinging and incensing speech of Agrippina, came a 
step forth of his dissimulation, when he said, ' You are hurt, because you 
do not reign ;' of which Tacitus saith, ' Audita h-aec raram occulti pectoris 
vocem elicuere, correptamque Grseco versu admonuit : ideo lsedi, quia non 
regnaret.' And therefore the poet doth elegantly call passions, tortures, 
that urge men to confess their secrets : 

' Vino tortus et ira.' 
And experience sheweth, there are few men so true, to themselves, and. so- 
settled, but that, sometimes upon heat, sometimes upon bravery, sometimes 
upon kindness, sometimes upon trouble of mind and weakness, they open 
themselves; specially if they be put to it with a counter-dissimulation, 
according to the proverb of Spoin, ' Di mentira, y sacaras verdad :' tell a 
lie, and find a truth." 

(b) See postea, page ccclxxix. (c) See postea, page ccclxxxiii. 

(d) See postea, p. ccclxxxjv. (e) See ante, p. cccxxxii. 



CCclxxiv LIFE OF BACON. 

Lambeth In a collection of his letters in the Lambeth Library 
rary * there is the following passage in Greek characters : 0<j> fxy 
o(p£V(T, (pap f3e ir (ppofi ^ue to tray, cW veviafi Kopvig ; 
vs^ar KEVGVpa Ko\v/j,f3a<r I f3vr i cut A A cray OdT t avs yooo 
wappavT (pop : 9ey (jjepe vox 6e ypsarsar o^xpev^spg iv IopaeA 
vttov (t)yop, 6s (jjaXX (peW. (a) 

Will. In his will, he says, " For my name and memory, I 

leave it to men's charitable speeches, to foreign nations, 
and the next ages." 

These words, not to be read till he was at rest from his 
labours, were cautiously selected, (b) with the knowledge, 
which he, above all men, possessed of the power of expres- 
sion, and of their certain influence, sooner or later, upon 
society, (c) 

The obligation to silence, imposed upon Bacon, extended 
to his friends after he was in the grave. 

Silence of Dr. Rawley, his first and last chaplain, says, " Some 
papers touching matters of estate, tread too near to the 
heels of truth, and to the times of the persons concerned." 

Tennison. Archbishop Tennison says, " The great cause of his 
suffering is to some a secret. I leave them to find it out 
by his words to King James : ' I wish that as I am the 

(a) Decyphered it is as follows : Of my offence, far be it 
from me to say, dat veniam corvis ; vexat censura Columbas : 
but I will say that I have good warrant for : they were not 
the greatest offenders in Israel upon whom the wall fell. 

{b) In a former will (see Baconiana, p. 203) there is the same wish 
expressed, not in such polished terms. The sentence is, u For my name 
and memory, I leave it to foreign nations and to mine own countrymen, 
after some time be passed over." 

(c) FRANCISCUS 
DE VERULAMIO 
SIC COGITAVIT 

is the opening of the Novum Organum. 



bushel's account. ccclxxv 

first, so I may be the last of sacrifices in your times: 
and when, from private appetite, it is resolved that a 
creature shall be sacrificed, it is easy to pick up sticks 
enough from any thicket whither it hath strayed, to make 
a fire to offer it with." 

From these observations it may be seen, that there was 
a conflict in the minds of these excellent men between 
their inclination to speak and their duty to be silent. 
They did not violate this duty; but one of his most sincere 
and grateful admirers, who, although he had painfully, but 
sacredly, preserved the secret from his youth to his old 
age, at last thus spoke : (a) 

" Before this could be accomplished to his own content, Bushel, 
there arose such complaints against his lordship, and the 
then favourite at court, that for some days put the King 
to this quere, whether he should permit the favourite of 
his affection, or the oracle of his council, to sink in his 
service; whereupon his lordship was sent for by the King, 
who, after some discourse, gave him this positive advice, 
to submit himself to his house of peers, and that, upon 
his princely word, he would then restore him again, if 
they, in their honours, should not be sensible of his 
merits. Now, though my lord saw his approaching ruin, 
and told his majesty there was little hopes of mercy in 
a multitude, when his enemies were to give fire, if he 
did not plead for himself: yet such was his obedience to 
him from whom he had his being, that he resolved his 
majesty's will should be his only law; and so took leave 
of him with these words : Those that will strike at your 
chancellor, it is much to be feared, will strike at your 
crown; and wished, that as he was then the first, so he 
might be the last of sacrifices. 

(a) For an account of Bushel, see note G G G . At the time of Bacon's 
death, in 1626, he was about twenty-six years of age: he published the 
tract in 1659. 



Ccdxxvi LIFE OF BACON. 

" Soon after, according to his majesty's commands, he 
wrote a submissive letter to the house, and sent me to 
my Lord Windsor to know the result, which I was loth, at 
my return, to acquaint him with ; for, alas ! his sovereign's 
favour was not in so high a measure, but he, like the 
phoenix, must be sacrificed in flames of his own raising, 
and so perished, like Icarus, in that his lofty design : the 
great revenue of his office being lost, and his titles of 
honour saved but by the bishops* votes, whereto he replied, 
that he was only bound to thank his clergy. 

" The thunder of which fatal sentence did much perplex 
my troubled thoughts as well as others, to see that famous 
lord, who procured his majesty to call this parliament, 
must be the first subject of their revengeful wrath, and 
that so unparalleled a master should be thus brought 
upon the public stage, for the foolish miscarriage of his 
own servants, whereof, with grief of heart, I confess myself 
to be one. Yet shortly after, the King dissolved the 
parliament, but never restored that matchless lord to his 
place, which made him then to wish the many years he 
had spent in state policy and law study had been solely 
devoted to true philosophy: for, said he, the one, at the 
best doth but comprehend man's frailty, in its greatest 
splendour ; but the other, the mysterious knowledge of all 
things created in the six days' work." 
"Williams On the 11th of July the great seals were delivered to 
Keeper. Williams, who was now Lord Keeper of England and 
Bishop of Lincoln, with permission to retain (a) the deanery 

(a) "The bishopric of Lincoln was bestowed upon him by the royal conge 
d'elire, the largest diocess in the land, because this new elect had the 
largest wisdom to superintend so great a circuit. Yet inasmuch as the 
revenue of it was not great, it was well preced out with a grant to hold the 
deanery of Westminster, into which he had shut himself fast with as strong 
bolts and bars as the law could make : else when the changes began to sing 
in the fifth year after, he had been thrust out of doors in a storm, when he 



WILLIAMS LORD KEEPER. CCclxXvii 

of Westminster, and to hold the rectory of Waldegrave 
in commendam. (a) 

had most need of a covering. Yet some suitors were so importunate to 
compass this deanery upon his expected leaving, that he was put to it to 
plead hard for that commenda before he carried it. The King was in his 
progress, and the lord marquis with him, to whom he writes to present his 
reasons to the King, which were, that the post of the lord keeper's place, 
though he would strike sail more than any that preceded him, must be 
maintained in some convenient manner. Here he was handsomely housed, 
which if he quitted, he must trust to the King to provide one for him as 
his majesty and his predecessors have ever done to their chancellors. Here 
he had some supplies to his housekeeping from the college in bread, beer, 
and fuel, of which if he should be deprived, he must be forced to call for 
a diet, which would cost the King 1,600Z. per annum, or crave for some 
addition in lieu thereof, out of the King's own means, as all his foregoers 
in that office had done. He might have added, for it was in the bottom of 
his breast, he was loath to stir from that seat where he had the command 
of such exquisite music. A request laid out in such remonstrance could 
not be refused by so gracious a prince who granted twenty suits to one he 
denied. Magnarum largita opum, largitor honorum pronus, which singu- 
larly fits King James, though Claudian made it for Honorius. Likewise, 
by the indulgence of his commenda, he reserved the rectory of Waldegrave 
to himself, a trifle not worthy to be remembered, but his reason is not 
unworthy to be detailed. That in the instability of human things, every 
man must look for a dissolution of his fortunes, as well as for the dissolu- 
tion of his body. Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury, kept his right to a 
poor cell in the monastery of Bee in Normandy, and that hospitality kept 
him when he fled out of England, and all the revenues of his mitre failed 
him : Stephen Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester, held the mastership of 
Trinity to his dying day, and said often, if all his palaces were blown down 
by iniquity, he would creep honestly into that shell. They that will not 
be wise by these examples I will send them to school to a fable in Plautus. 
Cogitato mus pusillus quam sit sapiens bestia et <ztatem qui avi cubili nun- 
qaam committat suam, qui si unum ostiwn obsideatur aliud perfugium quavit. 
So in the upshot he said Waldegrave was but a mousehole, yet it would 
be a pretty fortification to entertain him if he had no other home to resort 
to. Many such divinations flashed from others, who saw the hills of the 
robbers afar off, who have now devoured the heritage of Jacob, and say 
they are not guilty ; and they that have sold us and bought us say, Blessed 
be the Lord, for we are rich." — Hacket's Life of Williams, p. 62. 

(a) How sagacious was the bishop in these stipulations, in refusing to 
advance till he had secured a retreat. Buckingham afterwards boasted, 



CCCkxviii LIFE OF BACON. 



CHAPTER IV. 

FROM HIS FALL TO HIS DEATH. 
1621 to 1626. 

Such was the storm in which he was wrecked. " Methinks," 
says Archbishop Tennison, " they are resembled by those 
of Sir George Summers, who being bound by his employ- 
ment to another coast, was by tempest cast upon the 
Bermudas: and there a shipwrecked man made full dis- 
covery of a new temperate fruitful region, where none had 
before inhabited ; and which mariners, who had only seen 
as rocks, had esteemed an inaccessible and enchanted 
place. 

This temperate region was not unforeseen by the 
Chancellor. 

In a letter to the King, on the 20th March, 1622, he 
says, " In the beginning of my trouble, when in the midst 
of the tempest, I had a kenning of the harbour, which I 
hope now by your majesty's favour I am entering into: 
now my study is my exchange, and my pen my practice 
for the use of my talent." 

It is scarcely possible to read a page of his works with- 
out seeing that the love of knowledge was his ruling 

" that of all he had given him he would leave him nothing," a threat which 
he fulfilled to the letter. — Hacket's Life of Williams, part 2, p. 19. The 
Countess of Buckingham told the Lord Keeper that St. David's was the 
man that did undermine him with her son, and would underwork any man 
that himself might rise. 

In two years of King Charles's reign Buckingham pulled down 
Williams, Lee, Conway, Suckling, Crew, and Walter. 



PLEASURES OF KNOWLEDGE. CCclxxix 

passion ; that his real happiness consisted in intellectual 
delight. How beautifully does he state this when enume- 
rating the blessings attendant upon the pursuit and 
possession of knowledge: 

" The pleasure and delight of knowledge and learning 
far surpasseth all other in nature : for, shall the pleasures 
of the affections so exceed the senses, as much as the 
obtaining of desire or victory exceedeth a song or a dinner; 
and must not, of consequence, the pleasures of the intellect 
or understanding exceed the pleasures of the affections ? 
We see in all other pleasures there is satiety, and after they 
be used their verdure departeth, which sheweth well they 
be but deceits of pleasure, and not pleasures ; and that it 
was the novelty which pleased, and not the quality ; and 
therefore we see that voluptuous men turn friars, and 
ambitious princes turn melancholy ; but of knowledge there 
is no satiety, but satisfaction and appetite are perpetually 
interchangeable ; (a) and therefore appeareth to be good in 
itself simply, without fallacy or accident. Neither is that 
pleasure of small efficacy and contentment to the mind of 
man, which the poet Lucretius describeth elegantly, 

Suave mari magno, turbantibus sequora ventis, &c. 

' It is a view of delight, to stand or walk upon the shore 
side, and to see a ship tossed with tempest upon the sea; 
or to be in a fortified tower, and to see two battles join 
upon a plain ; but it is a pleasure incomparable for the 
mind of man to be settled, landed, and fortified in the 
certainty of truth ; and from thence to decry and behold 
the errors, perturbations, labours, and wanderings up and 
down of other men.' " (b) 



(a) " Heaven and earth pass away, but my words do not pass away.' 
(6) Advancement of Learning. 



CCclxXX LIFE OF BACON. 

Happy would it have been for himself and society, if 
following his own nature, he had passed his life in the 
calm but obscure regions of philosophy. 

He now, however, had escaped from worldly turmoils, 
and was enabled, as he wrote to the King, to gratify his 
desire "to do, for the little time God shall send me life, like 
the merchants of London, which, when they give over trade, 
lay out their money upon land : so, being freed from civil 
business, I lay forth my poor talent upon those things, 
which may be perpetual, still having relation to do you 
honour with those powers I have left." 

In a letter to Buckingham, on the 20th of March, 1621, 
he says, " 1 find that, building upon your lordship's noble 
nature and friendship, I have built upon the rock, where 
neither winds nor waves can cause overthrow:" and, in 
the conclusion of the same year,(«) " I am much fallen in 
love with a private life, but yet I shall so spend my time, 
as shall not decay my abilities for use." 

And in a letter to the Bishop of Winchester, (b) in 
which, after having considered the conduct in their banish- 
ments, of Demosthenes, Cicero, and Seneca, he proceeds 
thus : " These examples confirmed me much in a resolu- 
tion, whereunto I was otherwise inclined, to spend my time 
wholly in writing, and to put forth that poor talent, or 
half talent, or what it is that God hath given me, not 
as heretofore to particular exchanges, but to banks or 
mounts of perpetuity, which will not break. Therefore 
having not long since set forth a part of my Instauration, 
which is the work that in mine own judgment, si nunquam 
fallit imago, I may most esteem, I think to proceed in 
some new parts thereof; and although I have received 
from many parts beyond the seas testimonies touching that 

(«) Sept. 5, 162'. (J>) See vol. vii. p. 113. 



LETTER TO BISHOP OF WINCHESTER, 

work, such as beyond which I could not expect at the first 
in so abstruse an argument, yet, nevertheless, I have just 
cause to doubt that it flies too high over men's heads. I 
have a purpose, therefore, though I break the order of time, 
to draw T it down to the sense by some patterns of a natural 
story and inquisition. And again, for that my book of 
Advancement of Learning may be some preparative or key 
for the better opening of the Instauration, because it 
exhibits a mixture of new conceits and old ; whereas the 
Instauration gives the new unmixed, otherwise than with 
some little aspersion of the old, for taste's sake, I have 
thought good to procure a translation of that book into 
the general language, not without great and ample addi- 
tions and enrichment thereof, especially in the second 
book, which handleth the partition of sciences, in such 
sort, as I hold it may serve in lieu of the first part of the 
Instauration, and acquit my promise in that part. 

" Again, because I cannot altogether desert the civil 
person that I have born, which if I should forget, enough 
would remember. I have also entered into a work touching 
laws, propounding a character of justice in a middle term, 
between the speculative and reverend discourses of phi- 
losophers and the writings of lawyers, wdiich are tied, and 
obnoxious to their particular laws ; and although it be 
true that I had a purpose to make a particular digest, or 
recompilement of the laws of mine own nation, yet because 
it is a work of assistance, and that I cannot master by my 
own forces and pen, I have laid it aside. Now having in 
the work of my Instauration had in contemplation the 
general good of men in their very being, and the dowries 
of nature ; and in my work of laws, the general good of 
men likewise in societv, and the dowries of government : I 
thought in duty I owed somewhat to my country, which I 
ever loved ; insomuch, as although my place hath been far 



CCclxXxil LIFE OF BACON. 

above my desert, yet my thoughts and cares concerning 
the good thereof were beyond and over and above my 
place : so now, being as I am, no more able to do my 
country service, it remained unto me to do it honour; 
which I have endeavoured to do in my work of the reign 
of King Henry VII. As for my essays, and some other 
particulars of that nature, I count them but as the recrea- 
tion of my other studies, and in that sort I purpose to 
continue them; though I am not ignorant that those kind 
of writings would, with less pains and embracement, per- 
haps, yield more lustre aud reputation to my name than 
those other which I have in hand. But I account the use 
that a man should seek of the publishing his own writings 
before his death to be but an untimely anticipation of that 
which is proper to follow a man, and not to go along 
with him." 
Imprison- The sentence now remained to be executed. On the 

Bacon* last da ^ of Ma ^ Lord St * Albans was committed to the 
Tower; and, though he had placed himself altogether in 
the King's hands, confident in his kindness, it is not to be 
supposed that he could be led to prison without deeply 
feeling his disgrace. In the anguish of his mind he 
instantly wrote to Buckingham and to the King, sub- 
mitting, but maintaining his integrity as Chancellor. 

" Good my Lord, — Procure the warrant for my discharge 
this day. Death, I thank God, is so far from being 
unwelcome to me, as I have called for it (as Christian 
resolution would permit) any time these two months. But 
to die before the time of his majesty's grace, and in this 
disgraceful place, is even the worst that could be; and 
when I am dead, he is gone that was always in one tenor, 
a true and perfect servant to his master, and one that was 
never author of any immoderate, no, nor unsafe, no (I will 
say it), not unfortunate counsel ; and one that no tempta- 






i 

IMPRISONMENT. CCclxXxiii 

tion could ever make other than a trusty, and honest, and 
Christ-loving friend to your lordship; and howsoever I 
acknowledge the sentence just, and for reformation sake 
fit, the justest Chancellor that hath been in the five changes 
since Sir Nicholas Bacon's time. God bless and prosper 
your lordship, whatsoever become of me. 

" Your Lordship's true friend, living and dying, 
Tower, 51st May, 1621. " Fr. St. AlbAN." (a) 

After two days' imprisonment he was liberated : (b) and, Liberation 
the sentence not permitting him to come within the verge 
of the court, he retired, with the King's permission, to Sir 
John Vaughan's house at Parson's Green, (c) from whence, 



(a) That he wrote to the King is clear, from a letter dated June 22, 
1621, which concludes thus: " I submit myself, desiring his majesty and 
your lordship to take my letters from the Tower as written de profundis, 
and those I continue to write to be ex aquisfalsis." 

(b) The following is the notice in Camden. It is placed as after May 
15, and before June 1, 1621 . " Ex cancellarius in arcem traditur, post 
biduum deliberates." 

(c) In a letter to the Prince of Wales, dated June 1, he says: " I am 
much beholden to your highness's worthy servant, Sir John Vaughan, the 
sweet air and loving usage of whose house hath already much revived my 
languishing spirits, I beseech your highness, thank him for me. God 
ever preserve and prosper your highness. Your Highness's most humble 
and most bounden servant, Fr. St. Alban." 

Upon his arrival at Sir John's, he wrote to express his obligations both 
to the King and to Buckingham. 

To the King. — It may please your most excellent Majesty, — I humbly 
thank your majesty for my liberty, without which timely grant any farther 
grace would have come too late. But your majesty, that did shed tears in 
the beginning of my trouble, will, I hope, shed the dew of your grace and 
goodness upon me in the end. Let me live to serve you, else life is but 
the shadow of death to your Majesty's most devoted servant, 

June 4, 1621. Fr. St. Alban. 

To the Marquis of Buckingham. — My very good Lord, I heartily thank 
your lordship for getting me out of prison, and now my body is out, my 



CCclxXxiv LIFE OF BACON. 

although anxious to continue in or near London, he went, 
in compliance with his majesty's suggestion, for a temporary- 
retirement to Gorhambury, (a) where he was obliged to 



mind nevertheless will be still in prison till I may be on my feet to do his 
majesty and your lordship faithful service. Wherein your lordship, by the 
grace of God, shall find that my adversity hath neither spent nor pent my 
spirits. God prosper you. Your Lordship's most obliged friend and faith- 
ful servant, Fr. Sr. Alb an. — June 4, 1621. 

(a) To the Marquis of Buckingham. — My very good Lord, If it be 
conceived that it may be matter of inconvenience, or envy, my particular 
respects must give place ; only in regard of my present urgent occasions, 
to take some present order for the debts that press me most. I have 
petitioned his majesty to give me leave to stay at London till the last of 
July, and then I will dispose of my abode according to the sentence. I 
have sent to the Prince to join with you in it, for though the matter seem 
small, yet it importeth me much. God prosper you. 

June 20, 1621. Your Lordship's true servant, Fr. St. Alban. 

My very good Lord, — I humbly thank your lordship for the grace and 
favour you did both to the message and messenger, in bringing Mr. Meautys 
to kiss his majesty's hands, and to receive his pleasure from himself. My 
riches in my adversity have been, that I have had a good master, a good 
friend, and a good servant. 

I perceive by Mr. Meautys his majesty's inclination, that I should go 
first to Gorhambury; and his majesty's inclinations have ever been with 
me instead of directions. Wherefore I purpose, God willing, to go thither 
forthwith, humbly thanking his majesty, nevertheless, that he meant to have 
put my desire, in my petition contained, into a way, if I had insisted upon 
it ; but I will accommodate my present occasions as I may, and leave the 
times and seasons and ways to his majesty's grace and choice. Only I 
desire his majesty to bear with me if I have pressed unseasonably. My 
letters out of the Tower were de profundus ; and the world is a prison, if I 
may not approach his majesty, finding in my heart as I do. God preserve 
and prosper his majesty and your lordship. 

Your Lordship's faithful and bounden servant, Fr. St. Alban. 
June 22, 1621. 

My very good Lord, — I thank God I am come very well to Gorhambury, 
whereof I thought your lordship would be glad to hear sometimes. My 
lord, I wish myself by you in this stirring world, not for any love to place 
or business, for that is almost gone with me, but for my love to yourself, 



PETITION TO REMIT FIXE. CCclxXXV 

remain till the end of the year, but with such reluctance, 
that, with the hope of quieting the King's fears, he, at one 
time, intended to present a petition to the House of Lords 
to remit this part of his sentence, (a) 

which can never cease in your Lordship's most obliged friend and true 
servant, Fr. St. Alb an. 

Being now out of use, and out of sight, I recommend myself to your 
lordship's love and favour, to maintain me in his majesty's grace and good 
intention. 

To Lord Digby. — I pray, my Lord, if occasion serve, give me your good 
word to the King for the release of my confinement, which is to me a 
very strait kind of imprisonment. Your Lordship's most affectionate 
Gorhambury, this last of December, 1621. Fr. St. Alban. 

{a) Petition of the Lord Viscount St. Alban, intended for the House of 
Lords. 

My right honourable very good Lords, — In all humbleness acknow- 
ledging your lordships' justice, I do now, in like manner, crave and implore 
your grace and compassion. I am old, weak, ruined, in want, a very 
subject of pity. My only suit to your lordships is, to shew me your noble 
favour towards the release of my confinement (so every confinement is), 
and to me, I protest, worse than the Tower. There [ could have had 
company, physicians, conference with my creditors and friends about my 
debts, and the necessities of my estate, helps for my studies, and the 
writings I have in hand. Here, I live upon the sword point of a sharp air 
endangered if I go abroad, dulled if I stay within, solitary and comfortless 
without company, banished from all opportunities to treat with any to do 
myself good, and to help out any wrecks; and that which is one of my 
greatest griefs, my wife, that hath been no partaker of my offending, must 
be partaker of this misery of my restraint. 

May it please your lordships, therefore, since there is a time for justice, 
and a time for misery, to think with compassion upon that which I have 
already suffered, which is not little, and to recommend this my humble, 
and, as I hope, modest suit to his most excellent majesty, the fountain of 
grace, of whose mercy, for so much as concerns himself merely, I have 
already tasted, and likewise of his favour of this very kind, by some small 
temporary dispensations. Herein your lordships shall do a work of charity 
and nobility ; you shall do me good ; you shall do my creditors good ; and 
it may be, you shall do posterity good, if out of the carcass of dead and 
rotten greatness, as out of Samson's 1 ion, there may be honey gathered for 
the use of future times. God bless your persons and counsels. 

Your Lordship's supplicant and servant, Fr. St. Alban. 
VOL. XV. c c 



CCclxXXVl LIFE OF BACON. 

I 

In the month of July he wrote both to Buckingham and 
to the King letters in which may be seen his reliance 
upon them for pecuniary assistance, bis consciousness of 
innocence, a gleam of hope that he should be restored 
to his honors, and occasionally allusions to the favours he 
had conferred, (a) To these applications he received the 
following answer from Buckingham ; 

(a) To the Marquis of Buckingham. — My very good Lord, I have 
written, as I thought it decent in me to do, to his majesty, the letter I 
send inclosed. I have great faith that your lordship, now nobly and like 
yourself, will effect with his majesty. In this the King is of himself, 
and it hath no relation to parliament. I have written also, as your lord- 
ship advised me, only touching that point of means. I have lived hitherto 
upon the scraps of my former fortunes ; and I shall not be able to hold 
out longer. Therefore I hope your lordship will now, according to the 
loving promises and hopes given, settle my poor fortunes, or rather my 
being. I am much fallen in love with a private life ; but yet I shall so 
spend my time, as shall not decay my abilities for use. God preserve 
and prosper your lordship. — Sept. 5, 1621. 

To the King. — It may please your most excellent Majesty, I perceive, 
by my noble and constant friend, the marquis, that your majesty hath a 
gracious inclination towards me, and taketh care of me, for fifteen years 
the subject of your favour, now of your compassion, for which I most 
humbly thank your majesty. This same nova creatura is the work of 
God's pardon and the King's, and since I have the inward seal of the 
one, 1 hope well of the other. 

Utar, saith Seneca to his master, magnis exemplis; nee mea fortuna, sed 
tux. Demosthenes was banished for bribery of the highest nature, yet was 
recalled with honour; Marcus Livius was condemned for exactions, yet 
afterwards made consul and censor. Seneca banished for divers corrup- 
tions, yet was afterwards restored, and an instrument of that memorable 
Quinquennium Neronis. Many more. This, if it please your majesty, I 
do not say for appetite of employment, but for hope that if I do by myself 
as is fit, your majesty will never suffer me to die in want or dishonour. I 
do now feed myself upon remembrance, how when your majesty used to 
go a progress, what loving and confident charges you were wont to give 
me touching your business. For, as Aristotle saith, young men may be 
happy by hope, so why should not old men, and sequestered men, by 
remembrance. God ever prosper and preserve your majesty. Your majesty's 
most bounden and devoted servant, Fr. St. Alban. 

July 16, 1621. 



Buckingham's letter. ccclxxxvii 

To the Lord St. Alban. 

My noble Lord, — The hearty affection I have borne to 
your person and service hath made me ambitious to be 
a messenger of good news to you, and an eschewer of ill ; 
this hath been the true reason why I have been thus long 
in answering you, not any negligence in your discreet 

To the King. 

It may please your majesty, — I have served your majesty now seventeen 
years; neither was I, in these seventeen years, ever chargeable to your 
majesty, but got my means in an honourable sweat of my labour, save that 
of late your majesty was graciously pleased to bestow upon me the pension 
of twelve hundred pounds for a few years. When I received the seal, I 
left both the Attorney's place, which was a gainful place, and the clerkship 
of the Star Chamber, which was Queen Elizabeth's favour, and was worth 
twelve hundred pounds by the year, which would have been a good 
commendam. The honours which your majesty hath done me have put 
me above the means to get my living, and the misery I am fallen into hath 
put me below the means to subsist as I am. I hope my courses shall be 
such, for this little end of my thread, which remaineth as your majesty, in 
doing me good, may do good to many, both that live now, and shall be 
born hereafter. I have been the keeper of your seal, and now am your 
beadsman. Let your own royal heart and my noble friend speak the rest. 
God preserve and prosper your majesty. Your Majesty's faithful poor 
servant and beadsman, Fr. St. Alban. 

September 5, 1621. 

Cardinal Wolsey said, that if he had pleased God as he pleased the 
King he had not been ruined. My conscience saith no such thing; for I 
know not but in serving you I have served God in one. But it may be, 
if I had pleased God as I had pleased you, it would have been better 

with me. 

To the Marquis of Buckingham. 

My very good Lord, — Your lordship will pardon me if, partly in the 
freedom of adversity, and partly of former friendship (the sparks whereof 
cannot but continue), I open myself to your lordship, and desire also your 
lordship to open yourself to me. That which most of all makes me doubt 
of a change or cooling in your lordship's affection towards me is, that being 
twice now at London, your lordship did not vouchsafe to see me, though 
by messages you gave me hope thereof, and the latter time I had begged it 
of your lordship. The cause of change may either be in myself or your 
lordship. I ought first to examine myself, which I have done ; and God 
is my witness, I find all well, and that I have approved myself to your 



ccclxxxviii life of bacon. 

modest servant you sent with your letter, nor his who now 
returns you this answer, ofttimes given me by your master 
and mine ; who though by this may seem not to satisfy 
your desert and expectation, yet, take the word of a friend, 
who will never fail you, hath a tender care of you, full of a 
fresh memory of your by-past service. His majesty is but 
for the present, he says, able to yield unto the three years' 
advance, which if you please to accept, you are not here- 
after the farther off from obtaining some better testimony 
of his favour, worthier both of him and you, though it can 
never be answerable to what my heart wishes you, as your 
Lordship's humble servant, G. Buckingham. 

That he was promised some compensation for the loss 

of his professional emoluments seems probable not only 

from his letters to the King, and from the aid received, 

but from his having lived in splendour after his fall, 

although his certain annual income seems not to have ex- 
es 

ceeded £,2500. (a) With this income, he, with prudence, 
might, although greatly in debt, have enjoyed worldly 
comfort : but in prudence he was culpably negligent, (b) 

lordship a true friend, both in the watery trial of prosperity and in the 
fiery trial of adversity, &c. 

My very good Lord, — I hope his majesty may reap honour out of my 
adversity, us he hath done strength out of my prosperity. His majesty 
knows best his own ways; and for me to despair of him were a sin not to 
be forgiven. I thank God I have overcome the bitterness of this cup by 
christian resolution; so that worldly matters are but mint and cummin. 
God ever preserve you. 

(a) A pension from the crown of 1,200/., his grant from the Alienation 
Office 600/. a year, his own estate 700/. This pension he kept to his 
death, as appears by his will, from which it seems that he thought himself 
in opulence. 

(b) King James sent a buck to him, and he gave the keeper fifty pounds. 

Aubrey. 
In the preface to a work entitled " The Cries of the Oppressed/' pub- 
lished by M. Pitt, 1691, "12mo. there is the following gossiping statement: 



HIS IMPRUDENCE. CCclxXxix 

Thinking that money was only the baggage of virtue, (a) 
that this interposition of earth eclipsed the clear sight of 

" It is to be feared that our nation has been, and still is as guilty of this sin 
of bribery, even in the reigns of the best of our kings, as ever the house of 
Israel was. In the days of that good prince Edward the Sixth, bribery was 
a reigning vice even at the court itself, witness that famous court preacher 
and afterwards martyr, Father Latimer, in his sermons before that young 
prince and his nobles. This sin of bribery doth not only reign in King's 
palaces, but like the leprosy, spreads itself in all the courts of equity and 
justice, even to the meanest in office. When I was a boy I heard this 
following story of that great and learned man, the Lord Bacon, who was 
Lord Chancellor in King James the First's reign. I would speak tenderly 
of him, because he was one of the learnedest men of his age ; I will tell the 
natural story, and leave the reader to his own thoughts. Much at the time 
he was put out of the chancellorship, he happened to come into his hall 
where his gentlemen were at dinner. As soon as they see my lord, they all 
rose up, but his lordship calls to them to sit still. For, saith he, your rise 
has been my fall. But the story I am at is this : about the year 1655 some 
gentlemen meeting in my master's shop (a bookseller), and talking of 
learning and learned men, they mentioned my Lord Bacon to be one of the 
learnedest men of the world in the age he lived in ; but one of the gentle- 
men, who by his gray head could not be less than seventy years of age, 
replied, he did agree with them in their opinion of my Lord Bacon, but 
my lord had a fault, whatever it was he could not tell ; but, saith he, I 
myself have some business with his lordship : I went to him to his country 
house, which was near St. Albans, twenty miles from London, where I was 
admitted into his study, where was no person but his lordship and myself; 
and whilst I was talking with him about my business, his lordship had 
occasion to withdraw out of his study, and left me there alone. Whilst 
his lordship was gone there came into the study one of his lordship's 
gentlemen, and opens my lord's chQgt of drawers, wherein his money was, 
and takes it out in handfuls and fills both his pockets, and goes away 
without saying one word to me ; he was no sooner gone, but comes a second 
gentleman, opens the same drawers, fills both his pockets with money, and 
goes away as the former did, without speaking one word to me; at which 
I was surprised, and much concerned, and was resolved to acquaint my 
lord with it. As soon as my lord returned into his study, I told him, my 
lord, here was a very odd passage happened, since your lordship went. 
Upon which he asked me what it was: I told the passage as here related. 
He shook his head, and all that he said was, Sir, I cannot help myself." 

(a) In his Essay on Riches, vol. i. 119, he says, " I cannot call riches 
better than the baggage of virtue ; the Roman word is better, l impedimenta ;' 



CCCXC . LIFE OF BACON. 

the mind, he lived, not as a philosopher ought to have 
lived, but as a nobleman had been accustomed to live. It 
is related that the Prince, coming to London, saw at a 
distance a coach followed by a considerable number of 
people on horseback, and, upon inquiry, was told it was 
the Lord St. Albans attended by his friends ; on which his 
highness said with a smile, " Well, do what we can, this 
man scorns to go out like a snuff. " (a) 

Unmindful that the want of prudence can never be sup- 
plied, he was exposed, in the decline of life, not only to 
frequent vexation, and his thoughts to continual interrup- 
tion, but was frequently compelled to stoop to degrading 
solicitations, (b) and was obliged to incumber Gorhambury 
and sell York House, dear to him from so many associa- 
tions, the seat of his ancestors, the scene of his former 
splendour. These worldly troubles seem, however, not to 
have affected his cheerfulness, and never to have diverted 
him from the great object of his life, the acquisition and 
advancement of knowledge. When an application was made 
to him to sell one of the beautiful woods of Gorhambury, he 
answered, " No, I will not be stripped of my feathers." (c) 
Release of In September the King signed a warrant for the release 
of the parliamentary fine, and to prevent the immediate 

for as die baggage is to an army, so is riches to virtue : it cannot be spared 
nor left behind, but it hindereth the march ; yea, and the care of it some- 
times loseth or disturbeth the victory." 

(a) Aul. Coq. Qy. 

(b) To Sir Robert Pye. 

Good Sir Robert Pye, — Let me intreat you to despatch that warrant of 
a petty sum, that it may help to bear my charge of coming up to London, 
The duke, you know, loveth me, and my Lord Treasurer standeth now 
towards me in very good affection and respect. You, that are the third 
person in these businesses, I assure myself, will not be wanting; for you 
have professed and showed, ever since I lost the seal, your good will 
towards me. I rest your affectionate and assured friend, &c, 

(c) Aubrey. 



RELEASE OF FINE. CCCXC1 

importunities of his creditors, assigned it to Mr. Justice 
Hutton, Mr, Justice Chamberlain, Sir Francis Barnham, 
and Sir Thomas Crew, whom Bacon in his will directed to 
apply the funds, for the payment and satisfaction of his 
debts and legacies, having a charitable care that the 
poorest creditors or legatees should be first satisfied, (a) 

This intended kindness of the King the Lord Keeper 
Williams misunderstood and endeavoured to impede by 
staying the pardon at the seal, (b) until he was commanded 

(a) The following is the extract from the will: " Whereas of late my 
fine, and the whole benefit thereof, was by his majesty's letters patent 
conveyed to Mr. Justice Hutton, Mr. Justice Chamberlain, Sir Francis 
Barneham and Sir Thomas Crewe, knight, persons by me named in trust ; 
I do devise by this my will, and declare, that the trust by me reposed, as 
well touching the said lands as upon the said letters patents, is, that all and 
every the said persons so trusted, shall perform all acts and assurances that 
by my executors, or the survivor or survivors of them shall be thought fit 
and required, for the payment and satisfaction of my debts and legacies, 
and performance of my will, having a charitable care that the poorest either 
of my creditors or legataries be first satisfied." 

{b) Dr. Williams, Bishop of Lincoln elect, and Lord Keeper of the 
Great Seal, to the Viscount St. Alban. 

My very good Lord, — Having perused a privy seal, containing a pardon 
for your lordship, and thought seriously thereupon, I find that the passing 
of the same (the assembly in parliament so near approaching) cannot but 
be much prejudicial to the service of the King, to the honour of my lord of 
Buckingham, to that commiseration, which otherwise would be had of 
your lordship's present estate, and especially to my judgment and fidelity. 
I have ever affectionately loved your lordship's many and most excelling 
good parts and endowments ; nor had ever cause to disaffect your lordship's 
person. So as no respect in the world, beside the former considerations, 
could have drawn me to add the least affliction or discontentment unto 
your lordship's present fortune. May it therefore please your lordship to 
suspend the passing of this pardon until the next assembly be over and 
dissolved, and I will be then as ready to seal it as your lordship to accept 
of it; and, in the mean time, undertake that the King and my Lord Admiral 
shall interpret this short delay as a service and respect issuing wholly from 
your lordship, and rest, in all other offices whatsoever, 

Your Lordship's faithful servant, Jo. Lincoln, elect. Custos Sigilli. 

Westminster College, Oct. 18, 1621. 



CCCXC11 LIFE OF BACOX. 

by Buckingham to obey the King's order. In October 
the pardon was sealed, (a) 

The Lord Keeper to the Duke. 

My most noble Lord, — I humbly thank your Lordship for your most 
sweet and loving letter, &c. I humbly beseech your lordship to meddle 
with no pardon for the Lord of St. Albans, until I shall have the happiness 
to confer with your lordship; the pardoning of his fine is much spoken 
against, not for the matter (for no man objects to that) but for the manner, 
which is full of knavery, and a wicked precedent. For by this assignation 
of his fine, he is protected from all his creditors, which, I dare say, was 
neither his majesty's nor your lordship's meaning. Let all our greatness 
depend, as it ought, upon yours, the true original. Let the King be 
Pharaoh, yourself Joseph, and let us come after you as your half brethren. 
God bless you, &c. 

To the Lord Keeper. 

My very good Lord, — I know the reasons must appear to your lordship 
many and weighty which should move you to stop the King's grace, or to 
dissuade it ; and somewhat the more in respect of my person being, I hope, 
no unfit subject for noble dealing. I send Mr. Meautys to your lordship, 
that I might reap so much your fruit of your lordship's professed good 
affection, as to know in some more particular fashion what it is that your 
lordship doubteth or disliketh, that I may the better endeavour your satis- 
faction or acquiescence, if there be cause. So I rest, 

Oct. 18, 1621. Your Lordship's to do you service, Fr. St. Alb an. 

To the Marquis of Buckingham. 
My very good Lord, — An unexpected accident maketh me hasten this 
letter to your lordship, before I could dispatch Mr. Meautys ; it is that my 
Lord Keeper hath staid my pardon at the seal. I ever rest your Lordship's 
most obliged friend and faithful servant, Fr. St. Alban. 

Oct. 18, 1621. 

(a) The Lord Keeper to the Duke, concerning the Lord of St. Alban. 

My most noble Lord, — I have received your lordship's expression con- 
cerning the pause I made upon the patent for my Lord of St. Alban 's 
pardon. The latter I have not yet sealed, but do represent, in all lowliness 
and humility, these few considerations by your lordship to his sacred 
majesty, wherein let your lordship make no question but I have advised 
with the best lawyers in the kingdom ; and after this representation I will 
perform whatsoever your lordship shall direct. 

1 . His majesty and your lordship do conceive that my Lord of St. Alban's 
pardon and grant of his fine came both together to my hands, and so your 
lordship directs me to pass the one and the other. But his lordship was 



WILLIAMS S OPPOSITION. CCCXC1U 

He had scarcely retired to Gorhambury, in the summer Henry 7, 
of 1621, when he commenced his history of Henry the 
Seventh. 

too cunning for me. He passed his fine (whereby he hath deceived his 
creditors) ten days before he presented his pardon to the seal. So as now, 
in his pardon, I find his parliament fine excepted, which he hath before the 
sealing of the same obtained and procured. And whether the house of 
parliament will not hold themselves mocked and derided with such an 
exception, I leave to your lordship's wisdom. These two grants are oppo- 
site and contradictory, in this point, the one to the other. 

After 2 and 3, he thus proceeds : 

4. I will, not meddle or touch upon those mistakings which may fall 
between the parliament and his majesty, or the misinterpretation that 
enemies may make hereof to your lordship's prejudice, because I see, in his 
majesty's great wisdom, these are not regarded. Only I could have wished 
the pardon had been referred to the council-board, and so passed. I have 
now discharged myself of those poor scruples, which, in respect only to his 
majesty's service and your lordship's honour, have wrought this short stay 
of my Lord of St. Alban's pardon. Whatsoever your lordship shall now 
direct, I will most readily (craving pardon for this not undutiful boldness) 
put in execution. Because some speech may fall of this day's speech, 
which I had occasion to make in the Common Pleas, where a bishop was 
never seen sitting there these seventy years, I have presumed to inclose a 
copy thereof because it was a very short one. 

Your lordship shall not need to take that great pains, which your lord- 
ship, to my inexpressible comfort, hath so often done in writing. What 
command soever your lordship shall impose upon me, as touching this 
pardon, your lordship's expression to Mr. Packer, or the bearer shall deliver 
it sufficiently. God from heaven continue the showering and heaping of 
his blessings upon your lordship, &c. — Oct. 27, 1621. 

To the Lord St. Alban. 

My honourable Lord, — 1 have delivered your lordship's letter of thanks 
to his majesty, who accepted it very graciously, and will be glad to see 
your book, which you promised to send very shortly, as soon as it cometh. 
I send your lordship his majesty's warrant for your pardon, as you desired 
it; but am sorry that, in the current of my service to your lordship, there 
should be the least stop of any thing. Your lordship's faithful servant, 

October, 1621. G. Buckingham. 

Grant of pardon to the Viscount St. Alban, under the privy seal. 
A special pardon granted unto Francis, Viscount St. Alban, for all 
felonies done and committed against the common laws and statutes of this 



CCCXC1V LIFE OF BACON". 

During the progress of the work considerable expectation 
of his history was excited : (a) in the composition of which 
he seems to have laboured with much anxiety, and to 
have submitted his manuscript to the correction of various 
classes of society ; to the King, (b) to scholars, and to the 



realm; and for all offences of praemunire ; and for all misprisions, riots, &c. 
with a restitution of all his lands and goods forfeited by reason of any the 
premises; except out of the same pardon all treasons, murders, rapes, 
incest; and except also all fines, imprisonments, penalties, and forfeitures 
adjudged against the said Viscount St. Alban by a sentence lately made in 
the parliament. Teste Rege apud Westm. 17 die Octob. anno Regni 
suo 19. Per lettre de privato sigillo. 

(a) Dr. Rawley, in his life of Bacon, says, " His fame is greater, and 
sounds louder in foreign parts abroad than at home, in his own nation ; 
thereby verifying that divine sentence, a prophet is not without honour, 
save in his own country and in his own house. Concerning which I will 
give you a taste only, out of a letter written from Italy (the storehouse of 
divine wits), to the late Earl of Devonshire, then the Lord Cavendish. 
I will expect the new Essays of my Lord Chancellor Bacon, as also his 
history, with a great deal of desire ; and whatsoever else, he shall compose. 
But in particular, of his history, I promise myself, a thing perfect, and 
singular; especially in Henry the Seventh, where he may exercise the 
talent of his divine understanding." 

{b) It appears by a letter from his faithful friend, Sir Thomas Meautys, 
that the King did correct the manuscript. The letter is dated January 7, 
1621-2, and directed to the Lord Viscount St. Alban. It contains the 
following passage : " Mr. Murray tells me, the King hath given your book 
to my Lord Brooke, and enjoined him to read it, recommending it much 
to him, and then my Lord Brooke is to return it to your lordship ; and so 
it may go to the press when your lordship pleases, with such amendments 
as the King hath made, which I have seen and are very few, and those 
rather words, as epidemic, and mild instead of debonnaire, &c. Only that 
of persons attainted, enabled to serve in parliament by a bare reversal of 
their attainder, the King by all means will have left out. I met with my 
Lord Brooke, and told him that Mr. Murray had directed me to wait upon 
him for the book when he had done with it. He desired to be spared this 
week, as being to him a week of much business, and the next week I 
should have it; and he ended in a compliment, that care should be taken, 
by all means, for good ink and paper to print it in, for that the book 
deserveth it. I beg leave to kiss your lordship's hands." 



HENRY THE SEVENTH. CCCXCV 

uninformed. Upon his desiring Sir John Danvers to give 
his opinion of the work, Sir John said, " Your lordship 
knows that I am no scholar. Tis no matter, said my 
lord, I know what a scholar can say ; I would know what 
you can say. Sir John read it, and gave his opinion what 
he misliked, which my lord acknowledged to he true, and 
mended it. Why, said he, a scholar would never have told 
me this;"(a) but, notwithstanding this labour and anxiety, 
the public expectation was not realized. 

If, however, in the history of Henry the Seventh, it is 
vain to look for the vigour or beauty with which the 
Advancement of Learning abounds : if the intricacies of a 
court are neither discovered nor illustrated with the same 
happiness as the intricacies of philosophy : if in a work 
written when the author was more than sixty years of age, 
and if, after the vexations and labours of a professional 
and political life, the varieties and sprightliness of youthful 
imagination are not to be found, yet the peculiar properties 
of his mind may easily be traced, and the stateliness of the 
edifice be seen in the magnificence of the ruins. 

His vigilance in recording every fact tending to alleviate Facts. 
misery, or to promote happiness, is noticed by Bishop 
Sprat, in his history of the Royal Society, where he says, 
(t I shall instance in the sweating sickness. The medicine 
for it was almost infallible : but, before that could be 
generally published, it had almost dispeopled whole towns. 
If the same disease should have returned, it might have 
been again as destructive, had not the Lord Bacon taken 
care to set down the particular course of physic for it in 
his history of Henry the Seventh, and so put it beyond 
the possibility of any private man's invading it." (6) 

(a) Aubrey. 

(6) Whether it is not the same, or of the same nature, as the cholera 
which has lately appeared and now exists in England. — See vol.iii. p. 113. 



CCCXCVi 



LIFE OF BACON. 



Greatness One of his maxims of government for the enlargement 
of the bounds of the empire is to be found in his comment 
upon the ordinance, stated in the treatise " De Augmentis," 
" Let states and kingdoms that aim at greatness by all means 
take heed how the nobility, and grandees, and those which 
we call gentlemen, multiply too fast; for that makes the 
common subject grow to be a peasant and base swain 
driven out of heart, and in effect nothing else but the 
nobleman's bond-slaves and labourers. Even as you may 
see in coppice-wood, if you leave your studdles too thick, 
you shall never have clean underwood, but shrubs and 
bushes: so in a country, if the nobility be too many, the 
commons will be base and heartless, and you will bring it 
to that, that not the hundredth poll will be fit for an 
helmet, especially as to the infantry, which is the nerve of 
an army; and so there will be great population, and little 
strength." 

His love of familiar illustration is to be found in various 
parts of the history : as when speaking of the commotion 
by the Cornish men, on behalf of the impostor Perkin 
Warbeck, " The King judged it his best and surest way 
to keep his strength together in the seat and centre of 
his kingdom; according to the ancient Indian emblem, in 
such a swelling season, to hold the hand upon the middle 
of the bladder, that no side might rise." 

His piety. And his kind nature and holy feeling appear in his ac- 
count of the conquest of Granada. " Somewhat about this 
time came letters from Ferdinando and Isabella, King and 
Queen of Spain, signifying the final conquest of Granada 
from the Moors; but the king would not by any means 
in person enter the city until he had first aloof seen the 
cross set up upon the great tower of Granada, whereby 
it became christian ground ; and, before he would enter, 



Familiar 
illustra- 
tion. 



he did homage to God above, 



by an herald 



HENRY THE SEVENTH. CCCXCVil 

from the height of that tower, that he did acknowledge to 
have recovered that kingdom by the help of the Almighty ; 
nor would he stir from his camp till he had seen a little 
army of martyrs, to the number of seven hundred and 
more Christians, that had lived in bonds and servitude, 
as slaves to the Moors, pass before his eyes, singing a 
psalm for their redemption." 

The work was published in folio, in 1622 : (a) and is de- Presenta- 
dicated to Prince Charles. Copies were presented to the tlonco P ies - 
King, (b) to Buckingham, (c) to the Queen of Bohemia, (d) 

(a) The Historie of the Raigne of King Henry the Seventh, written by 
the Right Honourable Francis Lord Verulam, Viscount St. Alban. London, 
printed by W. Stransby, for Matthew Lownes and William Barret, 1622. 

(b) See letter to the King from Gorhambury, dated 20th March, 1621-2, 
vol. iii. p. xiii. pref. In this letter there is the following passage : " These 
your majesty's great benefits, in casting your bread upon the waters, as the 
scripture saith, because my thanks cannot any ways be sufficient to attain, 
I have raised your progenitor, of famous memory (and now, I hope, of 
more famous memory than before), King Henry VII. to give your majesty 
thanks for me ; which work, most humbly kissing your majesty's hands, I 
I do present." 

(c) Letter of March 20, 1621-2. vol. iii. p. xiii. preface. 

(d) It may please your Majesty, — I find in books, and books I dare 
allege to your majesty, in regard of your singular ability to read and judge 
of them even above your sex, that it is accounted a great bliss for a man to 
have leisure with honour. That was never my fortune, nor is. For time 
was, I had honour without leisure ; and now I have leisure without honour. 
And I cannot say so neither altogether, considering there remain with me 
the marks and stamp of the King, your father's, grace, though I go not for 
so much in value as I have done. But my desire is now to have leisure 
without loitering, and not to become an abbey-lubber, as the old proverb 
was, but to yield some fruit of my private life. Having therefore written 
the reign of your majesty's famous ancestor, King Henry the Seventh, and 
it having passed the file of his majesty's judgment, and been graciously 
also accepted of the prince your brother, to whom it is dedicated, I could 
not forget my duty so far to your excellent majesty, to whom, for that [ 
know and have heard, I have been at all times so much bound, as you are 
ever present with me, both in affection and admiration, as not to make unto 



CCCXCV111 LIFE OF BACON. 

and to the Lord Keeper, (a) 

It had scarcely been published when he felt and ex- 
pressed anxiety that it should be translated into Latin, 
" as these modern languages will, at one time or other, 
play the bankrupts with books; and, since I have lost 
much time with this age, I would be glad, as God shall 
give me leave, to recover it with posterity:" (b) a wish 
which was more than gratified, as it was published, not only 
in various editions, in England, but was soon translated 
into French and into Latin, (c) 



you, in all humbleness, a present thereof, as now being not able to give 
you tribute of any service. If King Henry the Seventh were alive again, I 
hope verily he could not be so angry with me for not flattering him, as well 
pleased in seeing himself so truly described in colours that will last and be 
believed. I most humbly pray your majesty graciously to accept of my 
good will; and so, with all reverence, kiss your hands, praying to God 
above, by his divine and most benign providence, to conduct your affairs to 
happy issue ; and resting your majesty's most humble and devoted servant, 
April 20, 1622. Fr. St. Alban. 

(a) To the Lord Viscount St. Alban. 
My very good Lord, — I heartily thank your lordship for your book, and 
all other symbols of your love and affection, which 1 will endeavour, upon 
all opportunities, to deserve; and, in the mean time, do rest your lordship's 
assured faithful poor friend and servant, Jo. Lincoln, C.S. 

Westminster College, this 7th of February, 1622. 
To the Right Honourable his very good Lord, 
the Lord Viscount St. Alban. 

(b) Letter to Toby Matthew. 

(c) In 1627 it was published in French, 8vo. Paris, par Holman, of 
which there is a copy in the British Museum. In 1629 there was a new 
edition in English. In 1633 an edition in Latin was published by Dr. 
Rawley, completed, as it seems, during the life of Bacon — See Rawley's 
life. And the press has since abounded with editions, in 1641, in 1647, 
and in 1662; and in the British Museum there is a MS. (Sloane's collec- 
tion, 84,) entitled, Notes taken out of his history of the reign of Henry the 
Seventh ; and another MS. Harleian, vol. 2, of Catalogue 300, entitled, 
Notes of Henry the Seventh's reign, set down in MS. by the Lord Chan- 
cellor Bacon. 



ETON COLLEGE. CCCXCIX 

Such was the nature of his literary occupations in the 
first year after his retirement, during which he corresponded 
with different learned foreigners upon his works; (a) and 
great zeal having been shewn for his majesty's service, he 
composed a treatise entitled, " An Advertisement touching 
a Holy War," which he inscribed to the Bishop of Win- 
chester, (b) 

In the beginning of this year a vacancy occurred in the A. D 
Provostship of Eton College, where, in earlier years, he 1623 
had passed some days with Sir Henry Savile, pleasant to ' 
himself and profitable to society, (c) His love of know- 
ledge again manifested itself. 

Having, in the spirit of his father, unfortunately en- 
gaged, in his youth, in active life, he now, in the spirit of 
his grandfather, the learned and contemplative Sir Anthony 
Cooke, who took more pleasure to breed up statesmen than 
to be one, offered himself to succeed the provost : as a fit 
occupation for him in the spent hour-glass of his life, and 
a retreat near London to a place of study, (d) 

The objection which would, of course, be made from 
what we, in our importance, look down upon as beneath 
his dignity, he had many years before anticipated in the 
Advancement of Learning, when investigating the objec- 
tions to learning from the errors of learned men, from — 
their fortunes ; their manners ; and the meanness of their 
employments : upon which he says, " As for meanness of 
employment, that which is most traduced to contempt, 
is, that the government of youth is commonly allotted 
to them; which age, because it is the age of least au- 

(a) See his letter to Father Baranzan, vol. xiii. p. 68. 

(b) See vol. vii. p. 112. 

(c) Ante p. ex. 

(d) See letter to Conway, vol. xii. p. 440, and vol. xii. p. 442, and to 
the King, vol. xii. p. 440. 



CCCC LIFE OF BACON. 

thority, it is transferred to the disesteeming of those 
employments wherein youth is conversant, and which are 
conversant about youth. But how unjust this traduce- 
ment is, if you will reduce things from popularity of 
opinion to measure of reason, may appear in that, we see 
men are more curious what they put into a new vessel, than 
into a vessel seasoned ; and what mould they lay about 
a young plant, than about a plant corroborate ; so as the 
weakest terms and times of all things used to have the best 
applications and helps ; and, therefore, the ancient wisdom 
of the best times did always make a just complaint, that 
states were too busy with their laws, and too negligent in 
point of education : which excellent part of ancient disci- 
pline hath been in some sort revived of late times, by the 
colleges of the Jesuits; of whom, although in regard of their 
superstition I may say, quo meliores, eo deteriores ; yet in 
regard of this, and some other points concerning human 
learning and moral matters, I may say, as Agesilaus said 
to his enemy Pharnabasus, Talis quum sis, utinam noster 
esses." (a) 

His application was not successful; the King answered 
that it had been designed for Sir William Beecher, but 
that there was some hope that, by satisfying him elsewhere, 
his majesty might be able to comply with the request. 
Sir William was satisfied by the promise of £2500, but 
the provostship was given to Sir Henry Wotton,(6) "who 
had for many years, like Sisiphus, rolled the restless stone 
of a state employment; knowing experimentally that the 
great blessing of sweet content was not to be found in 
multitudes of men or business : and, that a college was 
the fittest place to nourish holy thoughts, and to afford 



(a) Advancement of Learning, vol. ii. p. 26. 

(b) Wotton's Remains. 



ETON. CCCCl 

rest both to his body and mind, which he much required 
from his age, being now almost threescore years, and from 
his urgent pecuniary wants; for he had always been as 
careless of money, as though our Saviour's words, ' Care 
not for to-morrow/ were to be literally understood." He, 
therefore, upon condition of releasing a grant, which he 
possessed, of the mastership of the Rolls, was appointed 
provost, (a) 

At this disappointment Bacon could not be much affected. 
One day, as he was dictating to Dr. Rawley some of the 
experiments in his Sylva, he had sent a friend to court, 
to receive for him a final answer, touching the effect of a 
grant which had been made him by King James. He had 
hitherto only hope of it, and hope deferred ; and he was 
desirous to know the event of the matter, and to be freed, 
one way or other, from the suspense of his thoughts. His 
friend returning, told him plainly that he must thenceforth 

(a) The following is from the Life of Wotton, f To London he came the 
year before King James died; who having for the reward of his foreign 
service promised him the reversion of an office which was fit to be turned 
into present money, which he wanted for a supply of his present necessities, 
and also granted him the reversion of the Master of the Rolls place, if he 
outlived charitable Sir Julius Caesar, who then possessed it: and then, 
grown so old, that he was said to be kept alive beyond nature's course, by the 
prayers of those many poor which he daily relieved. But these were but 
in hope ; and his condition required a present support : for in the beginning 
of these employments he sold to his elder brother, the Lord Wotton, the 
rent-charge left by his good father, and, which is worse, was now at his 
return indebted to several persons, whom he was not able to satisfy, but by 
the King's payment of his arrears due for his foreign employments, he had 
brought into England many servants, of which some were German and 
Italian artists. This was part of his condition who had many times hardly 
sufficient to supply the occasions of the day : (for it may by no means be 
said of his providence, as himself said of Sir Philip Sidney's wit, that it was 
the very measure of congruity) he being always so careless of money, as 
though our Saviour's words, ' Care not for to-morrow,' were to be literally 
understood." 

VOL. XV. dd 



mentis. 



CCCC1I LIFE OF BACON. 

despair of that grant, how much soever his fortunes needed 
it. " Be it so," said his lordship; and then he dismissed 
his friend very cheerfully, with thankful acknowledgements 
of his service. His friend being gone, he came straightway 
to Dr. Rawley, and said thus to him, " Well, Sir, yon 
business won't go on, let us go on with this, for this is 
in our power :" and then he dictated to him afresh, for 
some hours, without the least hesitancie of speech, or dis- 
cernible interruption of thought, (a) 

He proceeded with his literary labours, and, during this 
year, published in Latin his celebrated treatise " De Aug- 
ments Scientiarum"(6) and his important " Historia Vitas 
et Mortis." (c) 
De Aug- Between the year 1 605, when the Advancement was 
published, (d) and the year 1623, he made great progress in 
the completion of the work, which, having divided into nine 
books, and subdivided each book into chapters, he caused 
to be translated into Latin by Mr. Herbert, and some 
other friends, and published in Latin in 1623, (e) in a 



(a) Baconiana. (b) See vols. viii. and ix. 

(c) See vol. x. for Latin, and vol. xiv. for English. 

(d) See vol. ii. 

(e) In the year 1622 Lord Bacon wrote an Advertisement touching an 
Holy War, to the Bishop of Winchester (see vol. vii. p. 112), in which he 
thus mentions the treatise " De Augmentis :" " That my book of Advance- 
ment of Learning may be some preparative or key for the better opening of 
the Instauration, because it exhibits a mixture of new conceits and old ; 
whereas the Instauration gives the new unmixed, otherwise than with some 
little aspersion of the old for taste's sake ; I have thought good to procure 
a translation of that book into the general language, not without great and 
ample additions and enrichment thereof, especially in the second book, 
which handleth the partition of sciences ; in such sort, as I hold it may 
serve in lieu of the first part of the Instauration, and acquit my promise in 
that part." 

In his letter to Fulgentio (vol. xii. p. cciii.), he says, " 1 judged it most 



X)E AUGMENTIS. CCCClli 

volume entitled De Dignitate et Augmentis Scientiarum. 



convenient to have them translated in the Latin tongue, and to divide 
them into certain tomes. The first tome consisteth of the books of the 
Advancement of Learning, which (as you understand) are already finished, 
and published, and contain the Partition of Sciences, which is the first part 
of my Instauration." 

In the Baconiana, Tenison says, " The Great Instauration was to con- 
sist of six parts. The first part proposed was, the Partitions of the Sciences; 
and this the author perfected in that golden treatise of the Advancement of 
Learning, addressed to King James. Afterwards he enlargeth the second 
of those two discourses, which contained especially the abovesaid partition, 
and divided the matter of it into eight books. And knowing that this work 
was desired beyond the seas, and being also aware that books written in a 
modern language, which receiveth much change in a few years, were out of 
use, he caused that part of it which he had written in English to be trans^ 
lated into the Latin tongue by Mr. Herbert and some others, who were 
esteemed masters in the Roman eloquence." 

In his letter to the King, upon sending his presentation copy, which is 
in the British Museum, he says, " It may please your most excellent 
Majesty, — I send, in all humbleness, to your majesty the poor fruits of my 
leisure. This book was the first thing that ever I presented to your 
majesty, and it may be will be the last. For I had thought it should have 
posthuma proles, but God hath otherwise disposed for a while. It is a 
translation, but almost enlarged to a new work. I had good helps for the 
language. I have been also mine own index expurgatorius, that it may be 
read in all places. For since my end of putting it into Latin was to have 
it read every where, it had been an absurd contradiction to free it in the 
language, and to pen it up in the matter. Your majesty will vouchsafe 
graciously to receive these poor sacrifices of him that shall ever desire to do 
you honour while he breathes, and fulfilleth the rest in prayers. Your 
Majesty's true beadsman and most humble servant," &c. 

And in his presentation letter to the Prince, he says, " It may please 
your excellent Highness. — I send your highness, in all humbleness, my 
book of Advancement of Learning, translated into Latin, but so enlarged, 
as it may go for a new work. It is a book, I think, will live and be a 
citizen of the world, as English books are not." 

And in his presentation copy to the Duke of Buckingham, he says,— 
" Excellent Lord, I send your grace for a parabien a book of mine, written 
first and dedicated to his majesty in English, and now translated into 
Latin, and enriched." 

The following address will, perhaps, best explain the work : 



CCCC1V LIFE OF BACON. 

This treatise De Augmentis is an improvement by 
expunging, (d) enlarging, (e) and arranging,^) of the 
Advancement of Learning. 



Gulielmus Rawley Sacrae Theologiae Professor, Illustrissimi Domini 
D. Francisci Baronis de Verulamio, Vice Comitis Sancti Albani, 
Sacellanus. 
Lectoris. Cum Domino meo placuerit, eo me dignari honore, ut in 
edendis operibus suis, opera mea usus sit : non abs re fore existimavi, si 
lectorem de aliquibus, quae ad hunc praesentem toraum pertinent, breviter 
moneam. Tractatum istum, de Dignitate et Augmentis Scientiarum, ante 
annos octodecim, edidit dominatio sua, lingua patria, in duos tantummodo 
libros distributum; et regiee suae majestati dicavit, quod et nunc facit. 
Non ita pridem animum adjecit, ut in Latinam linguam verteretur. Inau- 
dierat siquidem illud apud exteros expeti. Quinetiam solebat subinde 
dieere libros modernis linguis conscriptos, non ita multo post decocturos. 
Ejus igitur translationem, ab insignioribus quibusdam eloquentia viris 
elaboratam, propria quoque recensione castigatam, jam emittit. Ac liber 
primus eerte, quasi mera translatio est, in paueis admodum mutatus : at 
reliqui octo, qui Partitiones Scientiarum tradunt, atque Unico ante libro 
continebantur, ut novum opus, et nunc primum editum, prodit. Caussa 
autem praecipua, quae dominationem suam movit, ut opus hoc retractaretj 
et in plurimis amplificaret, ea fuit; quod in Instauratione Magna (quam 
diu postea edidit) Partitiones Scientiarum, pro prima lnstaurationis parte 
eonstituit: quam sequeretur Novum Organum ; dein Historia Naturalis; 
et sic deinceps. Cum igitur reperiret partem earn de Partitionibus Scien- 
tiarum jam pridem elaboratam (licet minus solide quam argumenti dignitas 
postularet), optimum fore putavit, si retractaretur, et redigeretur in opus 
justum et completum. Atque hoc pacto, fidem suam liberari intelligit, de 
prima parte lnstaurationis praestitam. Quantum ad opus ipsum, non est 
tennitatis meae, de eo aliquid praefari. Praeconium ei, quod optime con- 
veniat, existimo futurum illud, quod Demosthenes interdum dieere solebat 
de rebus gestis Atheniensium veterum ; laudatorem iis dignum esse solum- 
modo tempus. Deum Opt : Max j obnixe precor, ut pro dignitate operis 
fructus uberes, diuturnique, et auctori, et lectori, contingant. 

(d) The Advancement of Learning contains the beautiful passage in 
praise of Elizabeth, which is in the end of the first part of this work. See 
page xcv. This and another passage in praise of Elizabeth is omitted. 
See note 4 II at the end of this work. 

(e) Various parts are enlarged : see, for instance, the analysis of Natural 
History, and Justitia Universalis. 

(f) The Advancement is divided into two books, without any sub- 



DE AUGMENTIS. CCCCV 

In the first part there are scarcely any alterations, except 
the omission of his beautiful praise of Elizabeth, not, per- 
haps, very acceptable to her successor (a) The material 
alterations are in the analysis of Natural History and 
Natural Philosophy ; in his expansion of a small portion 
of the science of " Justitia Universalis ;" in that part of 
human philosophy under the head of Government, which 
relates to man as a member of society ; and in his arrange- 
ment of the important subject of revealed religion, (b) 

In the annexed outline of the work the parts marked 
in italics will exhibit the material alterations : 



division into chapters : the De Augmentis is divided into nine books, and 
each book is subdivided into chapters. 

{a) See note (d), preceding page. 

(b) The treatise " De Augmentis," being more extensive, abounds with 
passages that are not contained in " The Advancement." I will take one 
specimen from each subject into which the work is divided, viz. from 
History, relating to the Memory ; Poetry, relating to the Imagination ; and 
Philosophy, relating to the Understanding. 

In the treatise De Augmentis, Natural History is divided-^- 



1 



P : 

u. 



Of Nature in course. 
fl. As to the subject. -{ 2. Of Nature erring. 
Of Arts. 



2. -4s to the use. 



V, 



. Narrative. 
Inductive. 



But the division, as to the use, &c. is not contained in the Advancement. 

Under Poetry, the fable of Pan, of Perseus, &c. which are not in the 
Advancement will be found in the treatise De Augmentis. Under Philo- 
sophy, speaking on the advancement of universal justice, or the laws of 
laws, he says, " I propose, if God give me leave, having begun a work of 
this nature in aphorisms, to propound it hereafter, noting it in the mean 
time for deficient." In the treatise De Augmentis considerable progress 
is made in this projected work, in forty-seven distinct axioms. 

In Archbishop Tenison's Baconiana, the progress of this work, and the 
difference between the De Augmentis and the Advancement is explained. 



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DE AUGMENTIS. CCCCV11 



Of this extraordinary work various editions and transla- 
tions have been since published, (b) 



{b) Different editions of the treatise De Augmentis. 
1 . The first edition is thus described by Tenison : " The fairest and 
most correct edition of this book in Latin is that in folio, printed at 
London, 1623; and whoever would understand the Lord Bacon's cypher, 
let him consult that accurate edition : for, in some other editions which I 
have perused, the form of the letters of the alphahet, in which much of the 
mystery consisteth, is not observed, but the roman and italic shapes of them 
are confounded." The following is a copy of the title page : " Francisci 
Baconi Baronis de Vervlamio, Vice-Comitis Sancti Albani, de Dignitate 
et Augmentis Scientiarum. Libri ix. Ad Regem svvm. Londini, in 
Officina Joannis Haviland, mdcxxiii." There is a copy at Cambridge 
and in the British Museum, and I have a copy. 

2. The work had scarcely appeared in England, when an edition was 
published in France: it appeared in 1624. The following is a copy of 
the title page : " Francisci Baronis de Vervlamio Vicecomitis Sancti Albani, 
de Dignitate et Augmentis Scienciarum. Libri ix. Ad Regem svvm. 
Iuxta exemplar Londini impressurn. Parisiis, typis Petri Metayer, typo- 
graphi Regij. m.dc.xxiv." I have a copy. 

3. In 1638 an edition was published by Dr. Rawley, in a folio entitled, 
" Francisci Baconi Baronis de Vervlamio Vice-Comitis Sancti Albani 
tractatus de Dignitate et Augmentis Scientiarum qui est Instaurationis 
magne pars prima. Ad regem svvm. Londini, typis Ioh. Haviland. 
Prostant ad insignia Regia in Caemeterio D. Pauli, apud locosam Norton 
et Richardum Whitakerum. 1638." 

4. In the year 1645 an edition in 12mo. was published in Holland. 
The following is the title page : " Francisci Baconis de Verulamio, Vice- 
Comitis Sancti Albani, de Dignitate et Augmentis Scientiarum. Libri ix. 
Ad Regem suum. Editio nova, cum Indice rerum et verborum locu- 
pletissimo. Lugd. Batav. apud Franciscum Moyardum et Adrianum 
Wijngaerde. Anno 1645." — The title page of this Dutch edition is adorned 
with an engraving, not undeserving the attention of our students in England : 
it is of a youth aspiring to the attainment of knowledge. 

5. In 1652 another edition in 12mo. was published in Holland, the 
engraving prefixed to the edition of 1645 is also prefixed to this edition ; 
but the descriptive title is omitted, and the address to the reader is at the 
back of the engraving. The following is the title page : " Fr. Baconis de 
Vervlam Anglise Cancellarii de Avgmentis Scientiarvm. Lib. ix. Lvgd. 
Batavorvm, ex ofncina Adriani Wijngaerden. Anno 1652." 

6. In 1662 another edition was published in 12mo. in Holland. The 



CCCCV111 LIVE OF BACON. 

Copies were presented to the King, to whom it was 



following is a copy of the title page : " Fr. Baconis de Vervlam Angliae 
Cancellarii de Avgmentis Scientiarum Lib. ix. Amstelaedami, sumptibus 
Joannnis Ravesteinij. 1662." At the back of which, as in the edition of 
1652, there is the address to the reader: "Amice Lector. Hoc opus de 
Augmentis Scientiarum, novo ejusdem autoris organo si praemittatur, non 
modo necessarium ei lucem prsebet; sed et partitiones continet scientiarum 
quae primam Instaurationis magnae partem constituunt quas idcirco auctor 
in ipso organ i limine retractare noluit. Haec te scire volebam." 

7. In 1765 an edition in 8vo. was published at Venice. The following 
is the title page : " Francisci Baronis de Verulamio, Angliae Cancellarii de 
Dignitate et Augmentis Scientiarum. Pars prima. Lugani, mdcclxiii. 
Expensis Gaspans Girardi, Bibliopolae Veneti." I have a copy. 

8. In 1779 an edition was published on the continent. The following 
is the title page : " Francisci Baconi Baronis de Verulamio de Dignitate 
et Augmentis Scientiarum. Tomus i. Wirceburgi, apud. Jo. Jac. Stahel. 
1779. 

9. In 1829 another edition was published on the continent, in two vols, 
of which the following is the title page : " Francisci Baconis de Dignitate 
et Augmentis Scientiarum. Libri ix. Ad fidem optimarum editionum 
edidit vitamque auctoris adjecit Philippus Mayer, Philosophie Doctor et 
Gymnasii Norimbergensis Collega. Norimbergae, sumptibus Hiegeiii et 
Wiessneri. lymcccxxrx." 

Such are the different editions of which I have any knowledge. I under- 
stand that editions have been published in Germany, for which I have sent, 
and hope to be able to procure. 

Is it not rather extraordinary that not an edition has been published in 
either of the universities of England ? 

Translations. 
Tn the year 1640 a translation into English was published at Oxford, 
with a portrait of the philosopher writing his Instauratio, and the following 
inscriptions prefixed and subjoined : " Tertius a Platone philosophise prin- 
ceps. Quod feliciter vortat reip. literariae V. C. Fran, de Verulamio 
philosoph. libertates assertor avdax, scientiaru' reparator felix mundi mentisq. 
magnus arbiter inclytis max. terrarum orbis Acad. Oxon. Contab. Q. banc 
suam Instavr. voto suscepto vivus decernebat obiit v. non. April, u. D. N. 
Caroli I. Pp. Aug. cio ioc xxvi" — Appended is another engraving of 
two spheres, the one of the visible, the other of the intellectual world, and 
supported by two fixed pillars, the one Oxford and the other Cambridge, 
with a vessel sailing between them, with the following inscription : " Of 



DE AUGMENTIS. CCCC1X 

dedicated, the Prince, the Duke of Buckingham, Trinity 



the Advancement and Proficience of Learning, or the Partitions of 
Sciences, ix Bookes. Written in Latin by the most illustrious and famous 
Lord Francis Bacon, Baron of Verulam, Vicont St. Alban, Counsilour 
of Estate and Lord Chancellor of England. Interpreted by Gilbert Wats. 
Multi pertransibunt et augebitur scientia. Oxford, printed by Leon. 
Lichfield, printer to the University for Rob. Young, and Ed. Forrest. 

CICIOC XL." 

In the year 1674 another edition of the translation by Wats was pub- 
lished in London, but instead of the engravings which were prefixed to the 
edition of 1640, there is prefixed to the annexed title page only a portrait 
of Lord Bacon. The following is the title page : " Of the Advancement 
and Proficience of Learning : or the Partitions of Sciences. Nine Books. 
Written in Latin by the most eminent, illustrious and famous Lord Francis 
Bacon, Baron of Verulam, Viscount St. Alban, Counsellor of Estate and 
Lord Chancellor of England. Interpreted by Gilbert Wats. London, 
printed for Thomas Williams, at the Golden Ball in Osier Lane, 1674/' 

Of these translations Archbishop Tenison thus speaks in the Baconiana : 
" The whole of this book was rendered into English by Dr. Gilbert Wats, 
of Oxford, and the translation has been well received by many ; but some 
there were, who wished that a translation had been set forth, in which the 
genius and spirit of the Lord Bacon had more appeared. And I have seen 
a letter, written by certain gentlemen to Dr. Rawley, wherein they thus 
importune him for a more accurate version, by his own hand. ' It is our 
humble suit to you, and we do earnestly solicit you to give yourself the 
trouble to correct the too much defective translation of De Augmentis 
Scientiarum, which Dr. Wats hath set forth. It is a thousand pities that 
so worthy a piece should lose its grace and credit by an ill expositor ; since 
those persons who read that translation, taking it for genuine, and upon 
that presumption not regarding the Latin edition, are thereby robbed of 
that benefit which, if >ou would please to undertake the business, they 
might receive. This tendeth to the dishonour of that noble lord, and the 
Advancement of Learning.'" 

Of the correctness or incorrectness of these observations, some estimate 
may be formed from the following specimens : 

The Instauratio Magna thus begins : " Franciscus de Verulamio sic 
cogitavit" — Translation by Wats: " Francis Lord Verulam consulted thus." 

Another specimen : Advancement of Learning. — " We see in all other 
pleasures there is satiety, and after they be used their verdure departeth ; 
which sheweth well they be but deceits of pleasure, and not pleasures, and 
that it was the novelty which pleased, and not the quality; and therefore 



CCCCX LIFE OF BACON. 

College, Cambridge, the University of Cambridge, and the 



we see that voluptuous men turn friars, and ambitious men turn melan- 
choly ; but of knowledge there is no satiety, but satisfaction and appetite 
are perpetually interchangeable, and therefore appeareth to be good in itself 
simply, without fallacy or accident." 

Wats's Translation. — " In all other pleasures there is a finite variety, and 
after they grow a little stale, their flower and verdure fades and departs ; 
whereby we are instructed that they were not indeed pure and sincere 
pleasures, but shadows and deceits of pleasures, and that it was the novelty 
which pleased, and not the quality ; wherefore voluptuous men often turn 
friars, and the declining age of ambitious princes is commonly more sad 
and besieged with melancholy ; but of knowledge there is no satiety, but 
vicissitude, perpetually and interchangeably returning of fruition and appe- 
tite ; so that the good of this delight must needs be simpler, without 
accident or fallacy." 

In the year 1632 a translation into French was published in Paris. The 
following is a copy of the title page : " Neve Livres de la Dignite et de 
1'Accroissement des Sciences, composez par Francois Bacon, Baron de 
Verulam et Vicomte de Saint Aubain, et traduits de Latin en Francois par 
le Sieur de Golefer, Conseiller et Historiographe du Roy. A Paris, chez 
Jaques Dugast, rue Sainct Jean de Beauvais, a l'Olivier de Robert Estienne 
et en sa boutique au bas de la rue de la Harpe. m.dcxxxii. avec privilege 
du Roy." — Of this edition Archbishop Tenison says, " This work hath 
been also translated into French, upon the motion of the Marquis Fiat; 
but in it there are many things wholly omitted, many things perfectly mis- 
taken, and some things, especially such as relate to religion, wilfully 
perverted. Insomuch that, in one place, he makes his lordship to magnify 
the Legend : a book sure of little credit with him, when he thus began one 
of his essays, ' I had rather believe all the fables in the Legend, and the 
Talmud, and the Alcoran, than that this universal frame is without a mind.' " 
I have a copy of this edition. 

A Letter of the Lord Bacon's, in French, to the Marquess Fiat, relating 
to his Essays. 

Monsieur l'Ambassadeur mon File, — Voyant que vostre excellence faict 
et trait manages, non seulement entre les princes d'Angietere et de France, 
mais aussi entre les langues (puis que faictes traduire non liure de l'Ad- 
vancement des Sciences en Francois) i' ai bien voulu vous envoyer, &c. 

There is a translation into French in the edition of Lord Bacon's works, 
published in the eighth year of the French Republic. The following is the 
title page of this edition : " OEuvres de Francois Bacon, Chancelier d'An- 
gletaire; traduites par Ant. La Salle; avec des notes critiques, historiques 



DE AUGMENTIS. CCCCX1 

University of Oxford, (a) — The present was gratefully 
acknowledged by the different patrons to whom it was 
presented, and by all the learning of England. 

Fifty years after its publication it was included at Rome 
in the list " Librorum Prohibitorum," in which list it is 
now included in Spain. 

The vanity of these attempts to resist the progress of 
knowledge might, it should seem, by this time be under- 
stood even at the Vatican. 

How beautifully are the consequences of this intolerance 
thus stated by Fuller: (b) " Hitherto the corpse of John 
Wickliffe had quietly slept in his grave about forty-one 
years after his death, till his body was reduced to bones, 
and his bones almost to dust. For though the earth in 
the chancel of Lutterworth, in Leicestershire, where he 
was interred, hath not so quick a digestion with the earth 
of Aceldama, to consume flesh in twenty-four hours, yet 
such the appetite thereof, and all other English graves, 

et litteraires. Tome premier. A Dijon, de l'lmprimerie de L. N. Frantin, 
an 8 de la Republique Francaise." 

De Augmentis — Latin. 

1623 Foiio .... Haviland . . , . London 1st edit. 

1624 4to Mettayer Paris 2nd edit. 

1633 Folio Haviland .... London 3rd edit. 

1645 12mo. . . . Moirardum . . Dutch 4th edit. 

1652 12mo. . . . Wynyard Dutch 5th edit. 

1662 12mo. . . . Ravestein Dutch 6th edit. 

1765 8vo Gerard Venice 7th edit. 

1779 8vo Stahel Wirceburgi . . . 8th. 2 vols. 

1829 8vo Riegelii Nuremberg. . . . 9th. 2 vols. 

Translations. 

1640 English . . G. Watts Oxford Folio. 

1674 English . . G. Watts London Folio. 

1632 French . . . Dugast Paris 4to. 

8th year Rep. . French . . . Frantin Dijon 8vo. 

(a) Copies of the presentation letters, with the answers are in the preface 
to vol. viii. 

(b) Ecclesiastical History. 



CCCCX11 LIFE OF BACON. 

to leave small reversions of a body after so many years. 
But now such the spleen of the council of Constance, as 
they not only cursed his memory as dying an obstinate 
heretic, but ordered that his bones (with this charitable 
caution, — if it may be discerned from the bodies of other 
faithful people) be taken out of the ground, and thrown 
far off from any christian burial. In obedience here- 
unto, Richard Fleming, Bishop of Lincoln, Diocesan of 
Lutterworth, sent his officers, vultures with a quick sight 
scent at a dead carcass, to ungrave him. Accordingly to 
Lutterworth they come ; Summer, Commissary, Official, 
Chancellor, Proctors, Doctors, and their servants, so that 
the remnant of the body would not hold out a bone amongst 
so many hands, take what was left out of the grave, and 
burnt them to ashes, and cast them into Swift, a neighs 
bouring brook running hard by. Thus this brook hath 
conveyed his ashes into Avon, Avon into Severn, Severn 
into the narrow seas, they into the main ocean ; and thus 
the ashes of Wickliffe are the emblem of his doctrine, 
which now is dispersed all the world over." 

If Bacon had completed his intended work upon 
" Sympathy and Antipathy," the constant antipathy of 
ignorance to intellect, originating sometimes in the painful 
feeling of inferiority, (a) sometimes in the fear of worldly 
injury, but always in the influence of some passion more 



(«) The Athenian peasant voted for the banishment of Aristides, because 
he was called " The Just." 

" Let me have men about me that are fat, 
Sleek-headed men, and such as sleep a-nights : 
Yon Cassius has a lean and hungry look ; 
He thinks too much : such men are dangerous." 

" 'Tis a rich man's pride — there having ever been 
More than a feud, a strange antipathy 
Between us and true gentry." — Massinger. 



YITJE ET MORTIS. CCCCXlll 

powerful than the love of truth, (a) would not have escaped 
his notice. 

In this year he also published his History of Life and Life and 
Death, which, of all his works, is one of the most extra- 
ordinary, both for the extent of his views, and the minute 
accuracy with which each part is investigated. It is ad- 
dressed, not, to use his own expression, " to the Adonis's 
of literature, but to Hercules's followers ; that is, the more 
severe and laborious inquirers into truth." (b) 

Upon his entrance, in the Advancement of Learning, on 
the science of human nature, he says, " The knowledge of 
man, although only a portion of knowledge in the continent 
of nature, is to man the end of all knowledge :" (c) and, in 
furtherance of this opinion, he explains that the object of 
education ought to be knowledge and improvement of the 
Body and the Mind.(d) 

Of the importance of knowledge of the body, that, Body. 
" while sojourning in this wilderness, and travelling to 
the land of promise, our vestments should be preserved," 



(a) " Great is Diana of the Ephesians." — New Testament. " The Pope 
said he could catch no fish, if the waters were clear." — Fuller. " Man 
would contend that two and two did not make four if his interests were 
affected by this position." " Agnus was the only combination which the 
wolf, learning to spell, could make of the twenty-four letters of the alphabet." 

Although the objections of intellect and of ignorance may, possibly, be 
traced to a love of truth and of the public weal : the objections of interest 
always originate in self, and are movable only by removing the cause. The 
English ambassador, who, upon his return from Rome, being asked by 
Queen Caroline, " Why he had not attempted to make a convert of the 
Pope," wisely answered, " Madam, I had nothing better to offer to his 
Holiness." 

(6) Advancement of Learning. 

(c) See vol. ii. p. 153, and vol. viii. p. 204. Haec scientia homini pro 
fine est scientiarum : at naturae ipsius portio tantum. 

(d) Page ex. 



CCCCX1V LIFE OF BACON. 

he is incessant in his observations. He divides the subject 
into 

fl. The preservation of Health. 

1. Health. ■! 2. The cure of Diseases. 

o cu ,1 [3. The prolongation of Life, 

2. Strength. L r a 

3. Beauty. 
.4. Pleasure. 

His History of Life and Death may be regarded as a 
treatise upon the art of Preservation of Health and Pro- 
longation of Life. 

As the foundation of his investigations he considers, 

("1st. The causes of the consumption of the body. 
^2ndly. The modes of reparation. 

Consump- Of consumption he says there are two causes: the depre- 
dation of vital spirit and the depredation of ambient air; 
and if the action of either of these agents can be destroyed, 
the decomposition is more or less retarded, as in bodies 
inclosed in wax or coffins, where the action of the external 
air is excluded : and when the action of both these causes 
can be prevented, the body defies decomposition, as in 
bricks and burnt bodies, where the vital spirit is expelled, 
by exposure of the clay to the ambient air, and afterwards 
by fire ; or as a fly in amber, more beautifully entombed 
than an Egyptian monarch. 

In making the agents less predatory, and the patients 
less depredable, the science of the retardation of consump- 
tion consequently consists, (a) 

He proceeds, therefore, with his usual accuracy, to 
consider how these objects are to be attained; and, having 

(«) For the analysis, see note (a), next page. 



VJT^E ET MORTIS. 



CCCCXV 



considered them, he proceeds to the doctrine of reparation, 
both of the whole frame and the decayed parts, (b) 



(a) The following analysis will exhibit a small portion of this science : 



1. Consumption. - 



1. Causes. 



2. Retardation of , 
Consumption. J 



11. Ambient Air. 
2. Innate Spirit. 

"1. By making"") 

the agents I 1. The Air. 

less preda- J 2. The Spirit. 

tory. 1. Condensation. 

2. Diminution. 

3. Tranquillity. 

2. The patients less $1. Hardening. 



depredable. 



Softening. 



rl. The whole frame. - 



2. Reparation . 
of 



1. Concoction of the outward parts. 

2. Excitation of the outward parts. 

3. Preparation of aliment. 

4. Comforting the last act of 

assimilation. 



-2. Decayed parts. ) o 17 



Inteneration. 
Expurgation. 



(b) The following outline of the treatise is annexed, with the hope that it 
may induce some of the inquirers to whom it is addressed to extend their 
researches to this the foundation of their happiness and utility. It contains 
inquiries, 1 and 2, as to the durability of bodies inanimate and vegetable. 
3. Length of life in animals. 4. Alimentation. 5, 6, 7, 8, 9. Length of 
man's life according to, 

1. The ages of the world. 2. Places of birth. 3. Races of families. 

4. Complexions, constitutions. 5. Habits of body. 6. Statures. 

7. Manner and time of growth. 8. Make. 9. Times of nativity. 

10. Fare. 11. Diet. 12. Government. 13. Exercise. 14. Their 

Studies. 15. Courses of life. 16. Passions. 

10. Medicines that prolong life. 11. Physiognomical signs of long 
life. 12. Preventing consumption. 

1. Renewal of vigour of spirits. 2. Exclusion of air. 3. Operation 
on blood and sanguiferous heat. 4. Operation on juices of the 
body. 

13. Reparation by food. 

5. Operation upon bowels for extension of aliment. 6. Operation on 
outward parts for alteration of aliment. 7. Operation upon the 
aliment. 8. Operation on last act of assimilation. 



CCCCXV1 LIFE OF BACON. 

His History of Life and Death contains his favourite 
doctrine of Vital Spirit, or excitability, or life, which he 
notices in various parts of his works, (c) 

In this place more cannot be attempted than, as a 
specimen of the whole of this important subject, to explain 
one or two of the positions. 

14. Revivifying. 

9. Softening hard spirits. 10. Purging old juices. 

15. The porches of death. 16. Differences of youth and age. 17. Causes 
of life and death. 

(c) An imperfect outline may be thus exhibited : 

1. Every tangible body contains a spirit. 

2. The spirit is imperceptible by the senses. 

3. The spirit is but little known because it is imper- 

ceptible by the senses. 

4. This science is of great importance. 

These general observations are explained by a particular 
investigation of the various properties of spirit. 
I. Quantity of spirit. 

1. How generated. 

2. Of condensing and dilating the spirit. 

3. Detention of spirit. 

4. Exhaustion of spirit. 
ii. Quality of spirit. 

1. Different spirits of different bodies, and different 

sorts of spirits in the same body. 

2. Of preserving the spirit young and vigorous. 

3. Hot and cold. 

4. Active and quiescent, 
in. Regulation of spirit. 

iv. Of the perceptible effects of spirit upon the body. 

Sylva Sylvarum, Century 1, Art. 98, v. iv. p. 61. Fable of Proserpine, 
in the Wisdom of the Ancients, vol. hi. p. 88; and in the History of 
Henry VII. in his observations on the sweating sickness. 



LIFE AND DEATH. CCCCXV11 

The foundation position is, that " All tangible bodies All bodies 
contain a spirit enveloped with the grosser body. There - iu 
is no known body, in the upper parts of the earth, without 
its spirit, whether it be generated by the attenuating and 
concocting power of the celestial warmth, or otherwise; 
for the pores of tangible bodies are not a vacuum, but 
either contain air, or the peculiar spirit of the substance; 
and this not a vis, an energy, or a fiction, but a real, subtile, 
and invisible, and, therefore, neglected body, circumscribed 
by place and dimension." (a) 

This doctrine is thus stated in the Excursion : 

" To every form of being is assigned 
An active principle, howe'er removed 
From sense and observation ; it subsists 
In all things, in all natures, in the stars 
Of azure heaven, the unenduring clouds, 
In flower and tree, and every pebbly stone 
That paves the brooks, the stationary rocks, 
The moving waters, and the invisible air. 
Whate'er exists hath properties that spread 
Beyond itself, communicating good, 
A simple blessing or with evil mixed : 
Spirit that knows no insulated spot, 
No chasm, no solitude : from link to link 
It circulates, the soul of all the worlds." (b) 

(a) " The knowledge of man (hitherto) hath been determined by the 
view or sight ; so that whatsoever is invisible, either in respect of the fine- 
ness of the body itself, or the smallness of the parts, or of the subtilty of 
the motion, is little inquired. The spirits, or pneumaticals, that are in all 
tangible bodies, are scarce known. Sometimes they take them for vacuum ; 
whereas they are the most active of bodies. Sometimes they take them for 
air; from which they differ exceedingly, as much as wine from water, and 
as wood from earth. Sometimes they will have them to be natural heat, 
or a portion of the element of fire ; whereas some of them are crude and 
cold. And sometimes they will have them to be the virtues and qualities 
of the tangible parts, which they see; whereas they are things by them- 
selves, and then, when they come to plants and living creatures, they call 

(b) Excursion, B. 9. See note (a), next page. 

vol. xv. e e 



CCCCXV111 LIFE OF BACON. 

As another specimen, the mode of explaining the 
condensation of spirit by flight may be selected. 
Flight. The spirit, he says, is condensed by flight, — cold, — 

appeasing, and quelling. The condensation by flight is 
when there is an antipathy between the spirit and the body 
upon which it acts ; as, in opium, which is so exceedingly 
powerful in condensing the spirit, that a grain will tran- 
quillize the nerves, and by a few grains they may be so 
compressed as to be irrecoverable. The touched spirit 
may retreat into its shell for a time or for ever ; or it may, 
when fainting, be recalled, by the application of a stimulant, 
as surprise from a sudden impulse ; a blow, or a glass of 
water thrown on the face ; or the prick of a pin, or the 
action of mind on mind. 

" I am not sick, if Brutus have in hand 
Any exploit worthy the name of honour." 

Death. As another specimen, his sentiments upon Death, the 

decomposition of compounds, may be selected. 

In his doctrine of motion, he says, " The political motion 
is that by which the parts of a body are restrained, from 
their own immediate appetites or tendencies to unite in 
such a state as may preserve the existence of the whole 
body. Thus, the spirit, which exists in all living bodies, 
keeps all the parts in due subjection; when it escapes, 
the body decomposes, or the similar parts unite — as 

them souls. And such superficial speculations they have; like prospectives, 
that shew things inward, when they are but paintings." — Sylva, Exp. 98, 

(a) Principio coelum, ac terras, camposq: liquentes, 
Lucentemq: globum lunse, Titaniaq: astra, 
Spiritus intus alit totamq: infusa per artus 
Mens agitat molem, et magno se corpore miscet. — ZEneid. 

Plato's doctrine, respecting the " Anima Mundi," or soul of the world, 
pervading and vivifying all created things, see Berkeley's Sins, p. 133, 
and Mandeville on Hypochondriacism. 



VITAL SPIRIT. CCCCX1X 

metals rust, fluids turn sour; and, in animals, when the 
spirit which held the parts together escapes, all things are 
dissolved, and return to their own natures or principles: 
the oily parts to themselves, the aqueous to themselves, 
&c. upon which necessarily ensues that odour, that 
unctuosity, that confusion of parts, observable in putrefac- 
tion." So true is it, that in nature all is beauty; that, 
notwithstanding our partial views 'and distressing associa- 
tions, the forms of death, misshapen as we suppose them, 
are but the tendencies to union in similar natures. 

The knowledge of this science Bacon considers of the Import- 
utmost importance to our well being: — that the action of g^ce G 
the spirit is the cause of consumption and dissolution ; — 
is the agent which produces all bodily and mental effects ; 
— influences the will in the production of all animal motions, 
as in the whale and the elephant ; — and is the cause of all 
our cheerfulness or melancholy : — that the perfection of our 
being consists, in the proper portion of this spirit properly 
animated, or the proper portion of excitability properly 
excited; — that its presence is life, its absence death. 

This subject, deemed of such importance by Bacon, has 
been much neglected, and occasionally been supposed to 
be a mere creature of the imagination, (a) 

(a) Shaw, in his edition of Bacon says, "The whole of this inquiry still 
remains strangely neglected, to the great disadvantage of natural philosophy, 
which seems almost a dead thing without it." 

Dugald Stuart, in his dissertation, says, " If on some occasions, he 
assumes the existence of animal spirits, as the medium of communication 
between soul and body, it must be remembered that this was then the 
universal belief of the learned ; and that it was at a much later period not 
less confidently avowed by Locke. Nor ought it to be overlooked (I 
mention it to the credit of both authors), that in such instances the fact is 
commonly so stated, as to render it easy for the reader to detach it from 
the theory. As to the scholastic questions concerning the nature and 
essence of mind, — whether it be extended or unextended ? whether it have 
any relation to space or to time ? or whether (as was contended by others) 



CCCCXX LIFE OF BACON. 

Although the History of Life and Death is apparently a 
separate tract, it is the last portion of the third of the six 
books into which the third part of the Instauration is 
divided, (a) which are the histories of 

1st. The Winds. 

2nd. Density and Rarity. 

3rd. Heavy and Light. 

4th. Sympathy and Antipathy. 

5th. Sulphur, Mercury, and Salt. 

6th. Life and Death. 

His reason for the publication of this tract, he thus 
states : " Although I had ranked the History of Life and 
Death as the last among my six monthly designations; 
yet I have thought fit, in respect of the prime use thereof, 
in which the least loss of time ought to be esteemed 
precious, to invert that order. " 

The History, which was published in Latin, is inscribed 
" To the present age and posterity, in the hope and wish 
that it may conduce to a common good, and that the 
nobler sort of physicians will advance their thoughts, and 
not employ their times wholly in the sordidness of cures, 
neither be honoured for necessity only, but that they will 
become coadjutors and instruments of the divine omnipo- 
tence and clemency in prolonging and renewing the life 
of man, by safe, and convenient, and civil ways, though 
hitherto unassayed." 

it exist in every ubi, but in no place ? Bacon has uniformly passed them 
over with silent contempt; and has probably contributed not less effectually 
to bring them into general discredit, by this indirect intimation of his own 
opinion, than if he had descended to the ungrateful task of exposing their 
absurdity." 

(a) The two first, the Division of the Sciences and the Novum Organum, 
have already been explained, ante, p. cxxxv and cclxvii. 



LIFE AND DEATH. CCCCXX1 

This was the last of his philosophical publications during 
his life; but they were only a small portion of his labours, 
which are thus recorded by Dr. Rawley : — " The last five 
years of his life, being withdrawn from civil affairs and 
from an active life, he employed wholly in contemplation 
and studies: a thing whereof his lordship would often 
speak during his active life, as if he affected to die in the 
shadow, and not in the light. During this time he com- 
posed the greatest part of his books and writings, both in 
English and Latin, which I will enumerate, as near as I 
can, in the just order wherein they were written. 

The History of the Reign of King Henry the Seventh, (b) Works 

Abecedarium Naturae ; or a Metaphysical Piece, (c) retirement. 

Historia Ventorum. (d) 

Historia Vitse et Mortis, (e) 

Historia Densi, et Rari. (f) 

Historia Gravis et Levis. 

A discourse of a War with Spain, (h) 

A dialogue touching an Holy War. (i) 

The fable of the New Atlantis, (k) 

A preface to a Digest of the Laws of England. (/) 

The beginning of the History of the Reign of King 
Henry the Eighth, (m) 

De Augmentis Scientiarum ; (n) or the Advancement of 
Learning: put into Latin, with several enrichments 
and enlargements. 

Counsels, civil and moral ; or his book of Essays, like- 
wise enriched and enlarged, (o) 

(b) Vol. iii. p. 100. (c) Vol. xi. p. 219. 

(rf) Vol. x. p. 15. (e) Vol. x. p. 111. 

if) Vol. x. p. 381. (h) Vol. vii. p. 237. 

(0 Vol. vii. p. 118. (k) Vol. ii. p. 319. 

(I) Vol. iii. p. 353. (m) Vol. iii. p. 418. 

(n) Vols. viii. and ix. (o) Vol. i. 



CCCCXXU LIFE OF BACON. 

The conversion of certain Psalms into English verse, (p) 
The translation into Latin of the History of King Henry 
the Seventh; of the Counsels, civil and moral ; (r) 
of the dialogue of the Holy War ; (s) of the fable of 
the New Atlantis : (t) for the benefit of other nations. 
His revising of his book De Sapientia Veterum. (w) 
Inquisitio de Magnete. (x) 
Topica Inquisitionis ; de Luce, et Lumine. (y) 
Lastly, Sylva Sylvarum ; or the Natural History, (z) 

" He also designed, upon the motion and invitation of his 
late majesty, to have written the Reign of King Henry 
the Eighth ; (a) but that work perished in the designation 
merely, God not lending him life to proceed further upon 
it than only in one morning's work: whereof there is 
extant an Ex Ungue Leonem." 

Such were his works during the short period, when 
between sixty and seventy years of age, he, fortunately for 
himself and society, was thrown from active into contem- 
plative life; into that philosophical seclusion, where he 
might turn from calumny, from the slanders of his enemies, 
to the admiration of all civilized Europe ; from political 
rancour and threats of assassination to the peaceful safety 
of sequestered life ; from the hollow compacts which poli- 
ticians call union, formed by expediency and dissolved at 
the first touch of interest, to the enduring joys of intel- 
lectual and virtuous friendship and the consolations of 
piety. (b) 

(p) Vol. vii. p. 98. (r) Vol. xv. - (s) Vol. vii. 

(0 Vol. ii. (u) Vol. iii. (V) Vol. xi. p. 227. 

(j/) Vol. x. p. 440. (z) Vol. iv. (a) Vol. iii. p. 418. 

(6) Such are the joys of active intellectual seclusion. " Si Descartes 
eut quelques foiblesses de 1'humanite, il eut aussi les principales vertus du 
philosophe. Sobre, temperant, ami de la liberte et de la retraite, recon- 
noissant liberal, sensible a l'amitie, tendre, compatissant, il ne connoissoit 






FRIENDSHIP OF INTELLIGENCE. CCCCXX111 

These blessings he now enjoyed. Eminent foreigners 
crossed the seas on purpose to see and discourse with 
him, (a) 

Gondomar, who was in Spain, wrote to express his regard Gondomar 
and respect, with lamentations that his public duties pre- 
vented his immediate attendance upon him in England, (b) 

When the Marquis d'Effiat accompanied the Princess D'Effiat. 
Henrietta-Maria, wife to Charles the First, to England, 
he visited Lord Bacon; who, being then sick in bed, 
received him with the curtains drawn. " You resemble 



que les passions douces et savoit resister aux violentes. ' Qnand on me 
fait offense/ disoit-il, ' je tache d'elever mon ame si haut, que l'offense ne 
parvienne pas jusqu'a elle.' L'ambition ne l'agita pas plus que la vengeance. 
II disoit, comme Ovide, ' Vivre cache, c'est vivre heureux/ — Newton etoit 
doux, tranquille, modeste, simple, affable, toujours de niveau avec tout le 
monde, il ne se dementit point pendant le cours de sa longue et brillante 
carrifere. II auroit mieux aime etre inconnu, que de voir le calme de sa 
vie trouble par ces orages litteraires, que l'esprit et la science attirent a 
ceux qui cherchent trop la gloire. ' Je me reprocherois,' disoit-il, ' mon 
imprudence, de perdre une chose aussi reelle que le repos, pour courir 
apres un ombre.'" 

(a) Rawley. 

(6) See his correspondence with Gondomar, vol. xii. pp. 407-8, 441, 
443. The following is a translation from a Spanish letter of Gondomar: 

" Most illustrious Sir, — Having received so many kindnesses and good 
wishes from your illustrious lordship in your prosperity, I deem it one 
of my greatest misfortunes my not being able to serve you as duty and 
gratitude require of me now you are in adversity. Still greater is my mis- 
fortune, since my presence here is now useless ; for much as I have desired 
to express all I feel, and to salute you personally, I am constrained to 
refrain therefrom, lest I should give you offence, and this I assure you has 
occasioned me much grief, not being able to do all I would wish. Never- 
theless I will do all that I can, and if your lordship judges the intercession 
of the King my master with his majesty the King of Great Britain can be 
of any service to your affairs, I will represent the same to him, fully assured 
that his Catholic majesty will interpose with much pleasure. I shall 
always be devotedly at the service of } r our lordship, and praying God to 
preserve you many happy years. The Count de Gondomar." 



CCCCXXIV LIF£ OF BACON. 

the angels," said that minister to him : " we hear those 
beings continually talked of, we believe them superior to 
mankind, and we never have the consolation to see them." 
u Your kindness," he answered, " may compare me to an 
angel, but my infirmities tell me that I am a man." In 
this interview a friendship originated which continued 
during their lives, and is recorded in his will, where amongst 
his legacies to his friends, he says, " I give unto the right 
honourable my worthy friend, the Marquis Fiatt, late lord 
ambassador of France, my books of orisons or psalms 
curiously rhymed*" As a parent he wrote to the marquis, 
who esteemed it to be the greatest honour conferred 
upon him to be called his son. He caused his Essays 
and treatise Be Augmentis to be translated into French ; 
and, with the affectionate enthusiasm of youth, upon his 
return to France, requested and obtained his portrait, (a) 

Julius His friendship with Sir Julius Csesar, Master of the 

Caesar. Rolls, continued to his death, (b) 

(a) Rawley. 

(b) " Sir Julius Csesar (Master of the Rolls) sent to his lordship in his 
necessity an hundred pounds for a present." — Aubrey. 

Life of Caesar, p. 31 . — " To recur to the private life of Sir Jnlius Csesar ; 
his love of domestic society, his affection for his younger progeny, and the 
necessity of female superintendence to the economy of an enlarged house- 
hold establishment, combined to induce him, though now somewhat 
advanced in years, to take a third wife. On the 19th of April, 1615, he 
was married at the Rolls Chapel to Mrs. Anne Hungate, a widow, of an 
age not unsuitable to his own. She was a daughter of Henry Wodehouse, 
of Waxham in Norfolk, Esq. by Anne, one of the daughters of Sir Nicholas 
Bacon, Lord Keeper of the Great Seal, and had been first married to 
William Hungate, of East Bradenham in Norfolk, Esq. Her hand was 
given to Sir Julius Caesar at the nuptial ceremony by her uncle, the great 
Sir Francis Bacon, then Attorney General, and the friendship which had 
long subsisted between these two eminent persons was strengthened and 
confirmed by this marriage. He found an asylum in the bosoms of his 
nephew and niece; composed many of his immortal works in an utter 
retirement in the house of Sir Julius Csesar, and expired in his arms." 



HIS FRIENDS. CCCCXXV 

Selden, the chief of learned men reputed in this land, (a) Selden. 
expressed his respect, with the assurance that " never was 
any man more willing or ready to do your lordship's service 
than myself." (6) 

Ben Jonson, not in general too profuse of praise, says, Ben 
" My conceit of his person was never increased toward him onson - 
by his place or honours ; but I have and do reverence him 
for the greatness that was only proper to himself, in that he 
seemed to me ever by his works one of the greatest men, 
and most worthy of admiration that had been in many 
ages : in his adversity, I ever prayed that God would give 
him strength, for greatness he could not want; neither 
could I condole in a word or syllable for him, as knowing 
no accident could do harm to virtue, but rather help to 
make it manifest." (c) 

Sir Thomas Meautys stood by him to his death with a Meautys. 
firmness and love which does honour to him and to human 
nature. 

His exclusion from the verge of the court had long 1624. 
been remitted ; and, in the beginning of the year 1624, the ' 64# 
whole of the parliamentary sentence (d) was pardoned, 

(a) So described by Milton in his speech for the liberty of unlicensed 
printing. 

(b) See vol. xii. p. 421. (c) Under woods. 

(d) To the Earl of Oxford. 
My very good Lord, — Let me be an humble suitor to your lordship, for 
your noble favour. I would be glad to receive my writ this parliament, 
that I may not die in dishonour; but by no means, except it should be 
with the love and consent of my lords to re-admit me, if their lordships 
vouchsafe to think me worthy of their company; or, if they think that 
which I have suffered now these three years, in loss of place, in loss of 
means, and in loss of liberty for a great time, to be a sufficient expiation 
for my faults, whereby I may now seem in their eyes to be a fit subject of 
their grace, as I have been before of their justice. My good lord, the good 
which the commonwealth might reap of my suffering is already inned. 
Justice is done; an example is made for reformation; the authority of the 



CCCCXXV1 LIFE OF BACON. 

by a warrant which stated that, " calling to mind the 
former good services of the Lord St, Albans, and how well 
and profitably he hath spent his time since his trouble, 
we are pleased to remove from him that blot of ignominy 
which yet remaineth upon him, of incapacity and disable- 
ment; and to remit to him all penalties whatsoever inflicted 
by that sentence. Having therefore formerly pardoned 
his fine, and released his confinement, these are to will and 
require you to prepare, for our signature, a bill containing 
a pardon of the whole sentence." (a) 

house for judicature is established. There can be no farther use of my 
misery ; perhaps some little may be of my service ; for, I hope, I shall be 
found a man humbled as a Christian, though not dejected as a worldling. 
I have great opinion of your lordship's power, and great hope, for many 
reasons, of your favour, which if I may obtain, I can say no more, but 
nobleness is ever requited in itself; and God, whose special favour in my 
afflictions I have manifestly found to my comfort, will, I trust, be my pay- 
master of that, which cannot be requited by 

Your Lordship's affectionate humble servant, &c. 

Sir Francis Bacon to the King, about the Pardon of the Parliament's 
Sentence. 

Most gracious and dread Sovereign, — I desire not from your majesty 
means, nor place, nor employment, but only, after so long a time of expia- 
tion, a complete and total remission of the sentence of the upper house, to 
the end that blot of ignominy may be removed from me, and from my 
memory with posterity, that I die not a condemned man, but may be to 
your majesty, as I am to God, " nova creatura." 

(«) To our trusty and well beloved Thomas Coventry, our Attorney 
General. 

Trusty and well beloved, we greet you well : Whereas our right trusty 
and right well beloved cousin, the Viscount of St. Alban, upon a sentence 
given in the upper house of parliament full three years since, and more, 
hath endured loss of his place, imprisonment, and confinement also for a 
great time, which may suffice for the satisfaction of justice and example to 
others : we being always graciously inclined to temper mercy with justice, 
and calling to mind his former good services, and how well and profitably 
he hath spent his time since his trouble, are pleased to remove from him 
that blot of ignominy which yet remaineth upon him, of incapacity and 



DECLINE OF HIS HEALTH. CCCCXXV11 

This was one of the last of the King's acts, who thus a. D. 
faithfully performed, to the extent of his ability, all his 1625 -^ 
promises. He died at Theobalds, on the 27th of March, D ' ' 
1625. (a) James. 

His lordship was summoned to parliament in the suc- 
ceeding reign, but was prevented, by his infirmities, from 
again taking his seat as a peer. 

Though Lord Bacon's constitution had never been strong, Decline of 
his temperance and management of his health seemed to 
promise old age, which his unbounded knowledge and 
leisure for speculation could not fail to render useful to the 
world and glorious to himself. The retirement, which in 
all the distractions of politics refreshed and consoled him, 
was once more his own, and nature, whom he worshipped, 
spread her vast untrodden fields before him, where with 
science as his handmaid he might wander at his will ; but 
the expectations of the learned world and the hopes of his 
devoted friends were all blighted by a perceptible decay 
of his health and strength in the beginning of the sickly 
year of 1625. 

During this year his publications were limited to a new Apo- 
edition of his Essays, (b) a small volume of Apothegms, (c) tlie S ms - 

disablement; and to remit to him all penalties whatsoever inflicted by that 
sentence. Having therefore formerly pardoned his fine, and released his 
confinement, these are to will and require you to prepare, for our signature, 
a bill containing a pardon, in due form of law, of the whole sentence ; for 
which this shall be your sufficient warrant 

(«) See an interesting account of his death in Hacket's Life of Williams. 

(b) The particulars of this edition have been already explained. — See 
note 3 I. 

(c) Bacon's Apothegms are either, 1st. In this his own publication. 
2ndly. A few in the Baconiana. 3rdly. A few in Aubrey. Of the Apoph- 
thegms published in 1625 the following is the preface by Lord Bacon : — 
" Julius Csesar did write a collection of apophthems, as appears in an 
epistle of Cicero. I need say no more for the worth of a writing of that 
nature. It is pity his book is lost ; for I imagine they were collected with 



CCCCXXV111 LIFE OF BACON. 

the production, as a recreation in sickness, of a morning's 
dictation, and a translation of a few of the Psalms of 

judgment and choice, whereas that of Plutarch and Stoboeus, and much 
more the modem ones, draw much of the dregs. Certainly they are of 
excellent use : they are Mucrones Verborum, pointed speeches. Cicero 
prettily calls them salinas, salt pits, that you may extract salt out of, and 
sprinkle it where you will. They serve to be interlaced in continued 
speech : they serve to be recited upon occasion of themselves : they serve, 
if you take out the kernel of them, and make them your own. I have for 
my recreation in my sickness fanned the old ; not omitting any because 
they are vulgar (for many vulgar ones are excellent good), nor for the mean- 
ness of the person, but because they are dull and flat, and added many 
new that otherwise would have died." 

In his tract on history in the Advancement of Learning, Bacon says, 
" There are appendices of history conversant about the words of men, as 
history itself about the deeds : the partitions thereof into Orations, Letters, 
and Apophthegms." 

Archbishop Tennison, in his Baconiana, page 47, says, " The Apoph- 
thegms (of which the first is the best edition) were (what he saith also 
of his Essays) but as the recreations of his other studies. They were dic- 
tated one morning out of his memory ; and if they seem to any a birth too 
inconsiderable for the brain of so great a man, they may think with them- 
selves how little a time he went with it, and from thence make some 
allowance." He occasionally made great use of these Apothegms, as may 
be seen by comparing Apophthegms 251, page 403, with the same anec- 
dote as incorporated in the Advancement of Learning, vol. ii. page 224. 

The different editions are : — 1st edition. The title page " Apophthegmes, 
New and Old, collated by the Right Honorable Francis Lo. Verulam, 
Viscount St. Alban. London, printed for Hanna Barret and Richard 
Whittaker, and are to be sold at the King's Head in Paul's Church, 
1625." 12mo. 307 pages, and 280 Apothegms. This Tennison, in the 
Baconiana, p. 47, says is the best edition. 

2nd. In 1658 an edition was published. Here are 184 Apothegms of 
Bacon: it is a 12mo. This seems to have been reprinted in 1669. 
I have never seen a copy; but the following is from the Baconiana, 
where Tennison says, " His lordship hath received much injury by late 
editions, of which some have much enlarged, but. not at all enriched 
the collection; stuffing it with tales and sayings, too infacetious for a 
ploughman's chimney corner. And particularly, in the collection not long 
since published, and called the Apothegms of King James, King Charles, 
the Marquess of Worcester, the Lord Bacon, and Sir Thomas Moor; his 
lordship is dealt with very rudely. For besides the addition of insipid 



PSALMS. CCCCXX1X 

David into English verse, (a) which he dedicated to a Psalms. 
divine and poet, his friend, the learned and religious 
George Herbert, (b) This was the last exercise, in the 

tales, there are some put in which are beastly and immoral : such as were 
fitter to have been joined to Aretine, or Aloysia, than to have polluted the 
chaste labours of the Baron of Verulam." 

3rd. In 1661 an edition of the Apothegms was published in the 2nd 
edition of the Resuscitatio. It consists only of 249 Apothegms, the edition 
published by Lord Bacon in 1625 consisting of 280. As this edition of 
the Rescuscitation was published during the life of Dr. Rawley, and as 
Lord Bacon says in his preface, " I have collated some few of them, therein 
fanning the old," it seems that Dr. Rawley may have seen the MSS. and 
that these additions are genuine. It will be observed that they are fewer 
in number; and, although some are the same, there are many which are 
not contained in the first edition. — See Stephens's preface to the Memoirs, 
published in 1734. 

4th. In the 3rd edition of the Resuscitatio, published in 1671, there is 
another edition of the Apothegms, being 308 in number. Dr. Rawley 
died in 1667. 

The 5th edition is a 12mo. It contains, as in the 4th edition, 308 
Apothegms. 

In this edition of the works of Bacon I separated the Apothegms which 
were in the edition of 1625, being 280 in number, from the additional 
Apothegms in the Resuscitatio, such additional Apothegms being 28 in 
number. 

(a) Published in 8vo. 1628, and in the Resuscitation, and in vol. vii. of 
this edition, p. 98. 

(b) TO HIS VERY GOOD FRIEND, 

MR. GEORGE HERBERT. 
The pains that it pleased you to take about some of 
my writings I cannot forget, which did put me in mind to 
dedicate to you this poor exercise of my sickness. Besides, 
it being my manner for dedications, to choose those that 
I hold most fit for the argument, I thought, that in respect 
of divinity and poesy met, whereof the one is the matter, 
the other the style of this little writing, I could not 
make better choice: so, with signification of my love and 
acknowledgment, I ever rest your affectionate friend, 

Fr. St. Alban. 



CCCCXXX LIFE OF BACON. 

time of his illness, of his pious mind ; and a more pious 
mind never existed, (a) 
Confession There is scarcely a line of his works in which a deep, 
awful, religious feeling is not manifested. It is, perhaps, 
most conspicuous in his Confession of Faith, (b) of which 



Of these, the 107th seems to be the best. Vol. vii. p. 100. But Q. 
Has there ever been a version approaching to the excellence of the original 
prose translation ? 

(a) Preface to vol. vii. Archbishop Tennison says, " His writings upon 
pious subjects were only these : his Confession of Faith, written by himself 
in English, and turned into Latin by Dr. Rawley, the questions about an 
Holy War, and the Prayers, in these remains, and a translation of certain of 
David's Psalms into English verse. With this last pious exercise he 
diverted himself in the time of his sickness, in the year twenty-five. When 
he sent it abroad into the world, he made a dedication of it to his good 
friend, Mr. George Herbert, for he judged the argument to be suitable to 
him, in his double quality of a divine and a poet." 

(b) See vol. vii. p. 10. Of the authenticity of this essay no doubt can 
be entertained: it was published in a separate tract in 1641. The 
following is an exact transcript of the title page : " The Confession of 
Faith," written by Sir Francis Bacon, printed in the year 1641. In the 
title page there is a wood engraving of Sir Francis Bacon , it is a thin 4to. 
of twelve pages, without any printer's name. Mr. D'Israeli kindly lent me 
a copy. It is similar, but not the same as the present copy. It was also 
published by Dr. Rawley, in the Resuscitatio, 1657, by whom it was 
translated into Latin, and published in the Opuscula varia posthuma. 
Londini, ex officina, R. Danielis, 1658. In his life he says, " Supererat 
tandem scriptum illud Confessionis Fidei ; quod auctor ipse, plurimis ante 
obitum annis, idiomate Anglicano concepit : operae pretium mihi visum 
est Romana civitate donare ; quo non minus exteris, quam popularibus 
suis, palam fiat, qua fide imbutus, et quibus mediis fretus, illustrissimus 
heros, animam Deo reddiderit; et quod theologicis studiis, seque ac philo- 
sophicis et civilibus, cum commodum esset, vacaverit. Fruere his operibus, 
et scientiarum antistitis olim Verulamii ne obliviscaris. Vale." 

Of the Confession of Faith . there are various MSS. in the British 
Museum; Sloane's 23, 2 copies; Harleian, vol. 2, 314; vol. 3, 61; 
Hargraves, p. 62; the MSS. Burch, 4263, is, I suspect, in Lord Bacon's 
own writing, with his signature. It is stated in one of the MSS. to have 
been written before or when Sir Francis Bacon was Solicitor General, 
.and in the Remains it is entitled, " Confession of Faith, written by Sir 



RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. CCCCXXX1 

Dr. Rawley says, " For that treatise of his lordship's, 
inscribed, A Confession of the Faith, I have ranked that in 
the close of this whole volume ; thereby to demonstrate to 
the world that he was a master in divinity, as well as in 
philosophy or politics, and that he was versed no less in 
the saving knowledge than in the universal and adorning 
knowledges; for though he composed the same many years 
before his death, yet I thought that to be the fittest place, 
as the most acceptable incense unto God of the faith 
wherein he resigned his breath ; the crowning of all his 
other perfections and abilities ; and the best perfume of his 
name to the world after his death. This confession of his 
faith doth abundantly testify that he was able to render a 
reason of the hope which was in him." (a) 

It might be said of him, as one of the most deep thinking 
of men said of himself, " For my religion, though there be 
several circumstances that might persuade the world I 
have none at all, yet, in despight thereof, I dare, without 
usurpation, assume the honourable style of a christian : 
not that I merely owe this title to the font, my education, 

Francis Bacon, Knight, Viscount St. Albans, about the time he was 
Solicitor General to our late sovereign lord King James.'' 

This tract was republished in 1757. A Confession of Faith, written by 
the Right Honourable Francis Bacon, Lord Verulam, republished with 
a preface on the subject of authority in religious matters, and adapted to 
the exigency of the present times. London, printed for W. Owen, at 
Temple Bar, 1757. 8vo. pp. 26 

(a) This tract is thus noticed by Archbishop Tennison in the Baconiana. 
His Confession of Faith, written by him in English, and turned into 
Latin by Dr. Rawley, upon which there was some correspondence between 
Dr. Maynwaring and Dr. Rawley. See vol. xii. of this edit. p. 209. 
— It is stated in one of the MSS. to have been written before or when Sir 
Francis Bacon was Solicitor General, and in the Remains it is entitled, 
" Confession of Faith, written by Sir Francis Bacon, knight, Viscount 
St. Albans, about the time he was Solicitor General to our late sovereign 
lord King James." 



CCCCXXX11 LIFE OF BACOX. 

or clime wherein I was born, but having, in my riper years 
and confirmed judgment, seen and examined all, I find 
myself bound by the principles of grace and the law of 
mine own reason to embrace no other religion than this, (a) 
Prayers. From his Prayers, found after his death, his piety 
cannot be mistaken, (b) They have the same glory around 

(a) See Sir Thomas Browne's Religio Medici, of which my excellent 
friend, Charles Lamb has, with his usual sweet and deep feeling, thus 
spoken : " I wonder and admire his entireness in every subject that is 
before him. He follows it, he never wanders from it, and he has no occasion 
to wander; for whatever happens to be the subject, he metamorphoses all 
nature into it. In that treatise on some urns dug up in Norfolk, how 
earthy, how redolent of graves and sepulchres is every line ! You have now 
dark mould, now a thigh-bone, now a skull, then a bit of a mouldered 
coffin, a fragment of an old tomb-stone with moss in its " Hie jacet," a 
ghost or a winding-sheet, or the echo of a funeral psalm wafted on a 
November wind ; and the gayest thing you shall meet with shall be a silver 
nail or a gilt " Anno Domini," from a perished coffin top." 

The whole of the passage is as follows : " For my religion, though there 
be several circumstances that might persuade the world I have none at all, 
as the general scandal of my profession, the natural course of my studies, 
the indifferency of my discourse, and behaviour in matters of religion, 
neither violently defending one nor with common ardour or contention 
opposing another, yet in despight hereof I dare without usurpation assume 
the honourable style of a christian : not that I merely owe this title to the 
font, my education, or clime wherein I was born, as being bred up either 
to confirm those principles my parents instilled into my unwary under- 
standing, or by a general consent proceed in the religion of my country ; 
but having in my riper years and confirmed judgment seen and examined 
all, I find myself obliged, by the principles of grace and the law of mine 
own reason, to embrace no other name than this. Neither doth herein my 
zeal so far make me forget the general charity I owe unto humanity, as 
rather to hate than pity Turks, Infidels, and Jews, rather contenting myself 
to enjoy that happy style than maligning those who refuse so glorious a 
title. But because the name of christian is become too general to express 
our faith, to be particular, I am of that reformed new-cast religion, wherein 
I dislike nothing but the name : of the same belief our Saviour taught, the 
apostles disseminated, the fathers authorized, and the martyrs confirmed." 

(b) Vol. vii. p. 3. Of the prayers the first, entitled, " A Prayer, or 
Psalm, made by the Lord Chancellor of England," is in the Resuscitatio ; 



RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. CCCCXXXlll 

them, whether they are his supplications as a student, as an 
author, or as a preserver, when Chancellor, of the religious 
sentiments of the country. 

As a student, he prays, that he may not be inflated or Student's 
misled by the vanity which makes man wise in his own P ra y er ' 
conceit : " To God the Father, God the Word, God the 
Spirit, w r e put forth most humble and hearty supplications, 
that human things may not prejudice such as are divine; 
neither that from the unlocking of the gates of sense, and 
the kindling of a greater natural light, any thing of incre- 
dulity or intellectual night may arise in our minds towards 
divine mysteries." (b) 

As an author (c) he prays in the same spirit : " Thou, O Author's 
Father, who gavest the visible light as the first-born of thy P ra y er - 
creatures, and didst pour into man the intellectual light as 
the top and consummation of thy workmanship, be pleased 
to protect and govern this work, which coming from thy 
goodness, returneth to thy glory." 

The same spirit did not forsake him when Chancellor : Chancel- 

" Most gracious Lord God, my merciful Father from my s 

° ' J J prayer. 

youth up, my Creator, my Redeemer, my Comforter. 
Remember, O Lord, how thy servant hath walked before 
thee : remember what I have first sought, and what hath 
been principal in my intentions. I have loved thy assem- 
blies : I have mourned for the divisions of thy church : I 
have delighted in the brightness of thy sanctuary. This 
vine, which thy right hand hath planted in this nation, I 
have ever prayed unto thee that it might have the first 
and the latter rain ; and that it might stretch her branches 
to the seas and to the floods. Thy creatures have been 

the second prayer, entitled, " A Prayer made and used by the Lord Chan- 
cellor Bacon," is in the Remains ; and the two remaining prayers, " The 
Student's Prayer," and " The Writer's Prayer," are in the Baconiana. 

(6) Vol. vii. p. 8. (c) Vol. vii. p. 9. 

VOL. XV. // 



tion. 



CCCCXXX1V LIFE OF BACON. 

my books, but thy scriptures much more. I have sought 
thee in the courts, fields, and gardens, but I have found 
thee in thy temples." (a) 
Instaura- The same holy feeling appears in all his important 
works. The preface to his Instauratio Magna opens (b) 
and concludes (c) with a prayer. The treatise " De 

(a) Vol. vii. p. 5. 

(b) " We in the beginning of our work pour forth 
most humble and ardent prayers to God the Father, God 
the Word, and God the Spirit, that mindful of the cares 
of man, and of his pilgrimage through this life, in which 
we wear out some few and evil days, thou would vouchsafe 
through our hands to endow the family of mankind with 
these new gifts; and we moreover humbly pray that human 
knowledge may not prejudice divine truth, and that no 
incredulity and darkness in regard to the divine mysteries 
may arise in our minds upon the disclosing of the ways 
of sense, and this greater kindling of our natural light; 
but rather that from a pure understanding, cleared of all 
fancies and vanity, yet no less submitted to, nay wholly 
prostrate before the divine oracles r we may render unto 
faith the tribute due unto faith : and lastly, that being 
freed from the poison of knowledge, infused into it by 
the serpent, and with which the human soul is swoln and 
puffed up, we may neither be too profoundly nor immode- 
rately wise, but worship truth in charity."* 

(c) The preface to the Instauration concludes thus : 
"Neque enim hoc sineritDeus,ut phantasise nostras somnium 
pro exemplari mundi edamus : sed potius benigne faveat, ut 
apocalypsim, ac veram visionem vestigiorum et sigiilorum 
Creatoris supercreaturas, scribamus. Itaque tu, Pater, 
qui lucem visibilem primitias creaturse dedisti, et lucein 
intellectualem ad fastigium operum tuorum in faciem 
hominis inspirasti ; opus hoc, quod a tua bonitate pro- 

* Vol. ix. p. 260. 



REILGIOUS OPINIONS. CCCCXXXV 

Augmentis Scientiarum" abounds with religious sentiments, De Aug- 
contains two tracts, one upon natural, the other upon re- 
vealed religion, " the sabbath and port of all men's labours :" 
and concludes, " Attamen, quoniam etiam res quseque 

fectum, tuam gloriam repetit, tuere et rege. Tu, postquam 
conversus es ad spectandum opera, quse fecerunt manus 
tuae vidisti quod omnia essent bona valde ; et requievisti. 
At homo, conversus ad opera, quse fecerunt manus suse, 
vidit quod omnia essent vanitas et vexatio spiritus; nee 
ullo modo requievit. Quare si in operibus tuis sudabimus, 
facies nos visionis tuse et sabbati tui participes. Supplices 
petimus, ut hsec mens nobis constet: utque novis elee- 
mosynis per manus nostras et aliorum, quibus eandem 
mentem largieris, familiam humanam dotatam velis." # 

" May God never permit us to give out the dream of 
our fancy as a model of the world, but rather in his kind- 
ness vouchsafe to us the means of writing a revelation and 
true vision of the traces and stamps of the Creator on 
his creatures. May thou, therefore, O Father^ who gavest 
the light of vision as the first fruits of creation, and hast 
inspired the countenance of man with the light of the 
understanding as the completion of thy works, guard and 
direct this work, which, proceeding from thy bounty, seeks 
in return thy glory. When thou turnedst to look upon 
the works of thy hands, thou sawest that all were very 
good and restedst. But man, when he turned towards the 
works of his hands, saw that they were all vanity and 
vexation of spirit, and had no rest. Wherefore if we labour 
in thy works, thou wilt make us partakers of that which 
thou beholdest and of thy rest. We humbly pray that our 
present disposition may continue firm, and that thou mayest 
be willing to endow thy family of mankind with new gifts 
through our hands, and the hands of those to whom thou 
wilt accord the same disposition." 

* Vol. ix. p. 178. 



CCCCXXXVI LIFE OF BACON. 

maxima? initiis suis debentur, mihi satis fuerit sevisse 
posteris et Deo immortali : cujus numen supplex precor, 
per filium suum et servatorem nostrum, ut has et hisce 
similes intellectus humani victimas, religione tanquam sale 
respersas, et gloria? suse immolatas, propitius accipere 
dignetur." In the midst of his profound reasoning in the 
Novum Novum Organum, there is a passage in which his opinion 
Organum. Q f our i ncor p 0rea i nature is disclosed, (x) And the third 
3rd Part part of the Instauration concludes thus : " Deus Universi 
nstauratio (j on( jitor, Conservator, Instaurator, hoc opus, et in ascen- 
sione ad gloriam suam, et in descensione ad bonum 
humanum pro sua erga homines, benevolentia, et miseri- 
cordia, protegat et regat, per Filium suum unicum, 
nobiscum Deum." 
Minor In his minor publications the same piety may be seen. 

tions. ^ a PP ears m the Meditationes Sacraa; (a) in the Wisdom 
of the Ancients ;(b) in the Fables of Pan,(c) of Pro- 
metheus,^) of Pentheus, (e) and of Cupid : (f) in various 
parts of the Essays, but particularly in the Essay on 
Atheism (g) and Goodness of Nature : (h) in the New 
Atlantis : (?') in his tract, " De principiis/' and the tract, 
entitled " The Conditions of Entities, (k) 

(jr) " Quare actio magnetica poterit esse instantia diuortii circa naturam 
corpoream, et actionem naturalem. Cui hoc adjici potest tanquam corol- 
larium aut lucrum non praetermittendum : viz. quod etiam secundum 
sensum philosophanti sumi possit probatio, quod sint entia et substantia? 
separatae et incorporeae. Si enim virtus et actio naturalis, emanans a cor- 
pore, subsistere possit aliquo tempore, et aliquo loco, omnino sine corpore ; 
prope est ut possit etiam emanare in origine sua a substantia incorporea. 
Videtur enim non minus requiri natura corporea ad actionem naturalem 
sustentandam et deprehendam, quam ad excitandum aut generandam." 

(a) See vol. i. p. 203, and preface to vol. i. p. xxiii. 

(b) Vol. iii. p. 1, and preface, p. 2. (c) Vol. iii. p. 11. 

{d) Vol. iii. p. 63. (e) Vol. iii. p. 29. (f) Vol. iii. p. 43. 

(g) Vol. i. p. 53. (//) Vol. i. p. 40. (t) Vol. ii. p. 336. 

(k) Baconiana, p. 91. It concludes thus: "This is the form and rule 



RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. CCCCXXXV11 

There is a tract entitled, " The Characters of a believing Paradoxes. 
christian, in paradoxes and seeming contradictions/' which 
is spurious, (a) 

Such are his religious sentiments in different parts of 
his works ; but they are not confined to his publications. 
They appear where, according to his own doctrine, our 
opinions may always be discovered, in his familiar letters, 
in the testimony of his friends, in his unguarded obser- 
vations, and in his will. 

In a letter to Mr. Mathew, imprisoned for religion, he Letters, 
says, " I pray God, who understandeth us all better than 
we understand one another, contain you, even as I hope 
he will, at the least, within the bounds of loyalty to his 
majesty, and natural piety towards your country." In the 
decline of his life, in his letter to the Bishop of Win- 
chester, he says, " Amongst consolations, it is not the least 
to represent to a man's self like examples of calamity 
in others. In this kind of consolation I have not been 
wanting to myself, though as a Christian, I have tasted, 
through God's great goodness, of higher remedies." (Z>) 

In his essay on Atheism there is an observation, which Sceptics. 
may appear to a superficial observer hasty and unguarded, 
inconsistent with the language of philosophy, and at 
variance with his own doctrines. It was written, not in 
prostration to any idol, bat from his horror of the barren 
and desolate minds that are continually saying, " There is 
no God, "(c) and his preference, if compelled to elect, of the 
least of two errors. " I had rather," he says, " believe all 

of our alphabet. May God the Creator, Preserver, and Restorer of the 
universe, protect and govern this work, both in its ascent to his glory, 
and in its descent to the good of mankind, for the sake of his mercy and 
good will to men, through his only son Immanuel." 

(a) The evidence of this may be found in the preface to vol. vii. 

(6) See letter to the Duke of Buckingham, postea, p. 445. 

(c) See postea, p. 443, note (a). 



CCCCXXXV111 LIFE OF BACON. 

the fables in the Legend and the Talmud and the Alcoran, 
than that this universal frame is without a mind." (a) 

As knowledge consists in understanding the sequence of 
eyents, or cause and effect, (b) he knew that error must exist 
not only from our ignorance, but from our knowledge of 
immediate causes. 

In the infancy of his reason, man ascribes events to 
chance, or to a wrong natural cause, (c) or to the imme- 



(«) " Great God ! I'd rather be 

A pagan suckled in a creed outworn : 
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea, 
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn ; 
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea ; 
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn." — Wordsworth. 

(b) All the order and happiness in the world depend upon the regular 
sequence of events. 

" AH things that are have some operation not violent or casual. Neither 
doth any thing ever begin to exercise the same, without some fore-conceived 
end for which it worketh. And the end which it worketh for is not obtained 
unless the work be also fit to obtain it by. For unto every end every ope- 
ration will not serve. That which doth assign unto each thing the kind, 
that which doth moderate the force and power, that which appoints the 
form and measure of working, the same we term a law. So that no certain 
end could ever be attained, unless the actions whereby it is attained were 
regular, that is to say, made suitable, fit, and correspondent unto their end, 
by some canon rule of law."— Hooker, Ecclesiastical Polity. 

The blessings which result from the regular sequence of events will be 
evident by a moment's consideration of the misery attendant upon an 
interruption of this regularity : suppose, for instance, that calculating upon 
the nutritious effects of food, it was to have the effect of poison, or that 
sugar had the effect of arsenic; or that fire, instead of exhilarating by a 
genial warmth, had the violent effects of gunpowder; or that, at the moment 
of attack, gunpowder ceased to be inflammable, is it not obvious what 
misery must result ? 

(c) The following anecdote from a sermon of Bishop Latimer will clearly 
illustrate this : " Here now I remember an argument of Master More's, 
which he bringeth in a book that he made against Bilney, and here by the 
way I will tell you a merry toy. Master More was once sent in commis- 
sion into Kent, to help to try out, if it might be, what was the cause of 



RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. CCCCXXX1X 

diate interference of a superior benevolent or malevolent 
being; (cr) and, having formed an opinion, he entrenches 

Goodwin sands and the shelf that stopped up Sandwich haven. Thither 
cometh Master More, and calleth the country before him, such as were 
thought to be men of experience, and men that could of likelihood best 
certify him of that matter concerning the stoppage of Sandwich haven. 
Among others came in before him an old man with a white head, and one 
that was thought to be little less than a hundred years old. When Master 
More saw this aged man, he thought it expedient to hear him say his mind 
in this matter, for, being so old a man, it was likely that he knew most of 
any man in that presence and company. So Master More called this old 
aged man unto him, and said, Father, tell me, if ye can, what is the cause 
of this great rising of the sands and shelves here about this haven, the which 
stop it up, so that no ships can arrive here? Ye are the eldest man that I 
can espy in all this company, so that if any man can tell any cause of it, 
ye of likelihood can say most of it, or at leastwise more than any man here 
assembled. Yea, forsooth, good Master, quoth this old man, for I am well 
nigh a hundred years old, and no man here in this company any thing- 
near unto my age. Well then, quoth Master More, how say you in this 
matter ? What think ye to be the cause of these shelves and flats that stop 
up Sandwich haven ? Forsooth, sir, quoth he, I am an old man ; I think 
that Tenderden-steeple is the cause of Goodwin sands ; for I am an old 
man, sir, quoth he, and I may remember the building of Tenderden steeple, 
and I may remember when there was no steeple at all there. And before 
that Tenderden steeple was in building, there was no manner of speaking 
of any fiats or sands that stopped the haven, and therefore I think that 
Tenderden steeple is the cause of the destroying and decay of Sandwich 
haven. And so to my purpose, preaching of God's word is the cause of 
rebellion, as Tenderden steeple was the cause that Sandwich haven is 
decayed." 

A common instance of this species of error is in the love-note of the 
spider, called the death watch. Sitting by the bed of a sick or dying- 
friend, when all is still, the noise of the spider is heard a short time 
before the death of the sufferer; and the events are, therefore, supposed to 
be connected. Astrology is, perhaps, founded upon this delusion. 

(a) Near to the Hartz mountains in Germany, a gigantic figure has from 
time immemorial occasionally appeared in the heavens. It is indistinct, 
but always resembles the form of a human being. Its appearance has ever 
been a certain indication of approaching misfortune. It is called the 
Spectre of the Broken. It has been seen by many travellers. In speaking 
of it, Monsieur Jordan says, " In the course of my repeated tours through 
the Hartz mountains, I often, but in vain, ascended the Broken, that I 



CCCCxl LIFE OF BACON. 

himself within its narrow boundaries, or is indolently 
content without seeking for any remote cause, (q) but 



might see the spectre. At length, on a serene morning, as the sun was 
just appearing above the horizon, it stood before me, at a great distance, 
towards the opposite mountain. It seemed to be the gigantic figure of a 
man. It vanished in a moment." In September, 1796, the celebrated 
Abbe Haiiy visited this country. He says : " After having ascended the 
mountain for thirty times, I at last saw the spectre. It was just at sun- 
rise, in the middle of the month of May, about four o'clock in the morning. 
I saw distinctly a human figure of a monstrous size. The atmosphere was 
quite serene towards the east. In the south-west a high wind carried 
before it some light vapours, which were scarcely condensed into clouds 
and hung round the mountains upon which the figure stood. I bowed. 
The colossal figure repeated it. I paid my respects a second time, which 
was returned with the same civility. I then called the landlord of the inn; 
and having taken the same position which I had before occupied, we looked 
towards the mountain, when we clearly saw two such colossal figures, 
which, after having repeated our compliment by bending their bodies, 
vanished. — When the rising sun throws his rays over the Broken upon the 
body of a man standing opposite to fleecy clouds, let him fix his eye 
steadfastly upon them, and in all probability he will see his own shadow 
extending the length of five or six hundred feet, at the distance of about 
two miles from him." 

(<?-) This is explained by Lord Bacon, in his doctrine of Idols, under the 
head " Abandoning Universality." He says, " Man has a tendency to 
abandon universality, that is, to stop too soon in his inquiries, and to con- 
clude that he views the truth which he possesses in all its extent." This 
may be thus illustrated : — Rings twirled upon an axis appear spheres. A 
lighted stick, moved quickly in a circle, appears a circle of fire, or what 
boys call gold lace. A lighted flambeau carried quickly by night appears 
tailed like a comet. When a musical string is struck, it vibrates, and 
the strings appear double, treble, &c. These appearances originate in a 
new impression being made before the effect of a former impression is 
removed ; for if these motions are performed slowly, such appearances do 
not exist. It may, therefore, be considered a general truth, that when a 
new impression is made upon the organ of sight before the effect of a 
former impression is removed, that is, when the motion of impulse is 
quicker than the motion of recovery, this peculiar effect is produced. 
Now the position, that "Man has a tendency to abandon universality," 
assumes that, the mind, having discovered this truth with respect to the 
sense of seeing, is apt to rest content therewith, without considering that it 



RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. CCCCxli 

philosophy endeavours to discover the antecedent in the 
chain of events, (a) and looks up to the first cause, (b) 



is only a sprout from some general or more universal truth pervading 
different parts of nature. 

That this truth is not confined to the sense of seeing will appear from 
a few moments' consideration. — Does not gunpowder produce its effect by 
the rapidity with which the crude spirit of the nitre avoids and flies from 
fire, where the impelling force is quicker than the force of resistance ? are 
not such great masses of matter as an elephant or a whale moved in the 
same manner by the repeated action of animal spirit ? is not, also, animal 
spirit itself in the same manner put to flight by the action of opium ? Is 
it not, therefore, an universal truth, that great effects are produced when 
the motion of impulse is quicker than the motion of recovery ? 

Again, to fall suddenly from a discord upon a concord is agreeable in 
music ; but this truth is not confined to music : a sudden alteration in tone 
is often agreeable in public speaking; and it may, perhaps, be said uni- 
versally that there always is delight in breaking the continuity of any 
painful sensation. 

Again, the quavering upon a stop in music gives delight to the ear ; but 
this pleasure from quavering is not confined to music : for the playing of 
light upon the water or the sparkling of a diamond give the same delight 
to the eyes; and, perhaps, it may be said universally, that gentle and 
quickly varying excitement, gentle fluctuating undulation, unattended with 
pain, is pleasant. 

The cause seems to be, either mental indolence, which contents itself 
with the truth it possesses, without the trouble of inquiring whether it can 
be extended ; or the never dreaming of the possibility of any extension, 
from want of the habit of exercising the understanding to its full extent, of 
giving scope to the understanding to range. 

The errors with respect to cause and effect may be thus exhibited : 

1 . From ignorance of the cause, ascribing events 
"1. To chance. 



! 



2. To a wrong natural cause. 
.3. To immediate interposition of a superior. 
2. From knowledge of proximate cause. 
Abandoning universality. 

(a) See ante, note (a), page 439. 

(b) Hume, in his general corollary at the conclusion of his Essays, says, 
" Though the stupidity of men, barbarous and uninstructed, be so great, 
that they may not see a sovereign author in the more obvious works 
of nature, to which they are so much familiarised, yet it scarce seems 



CCCCxlil LIFE OF BACON. 

This stopping at second causes, the property of animals 
and of ignorance, always diminishes as knowledge ad- 
vances, (a) Great intellect cannot be severed from piety. 
It was reserved for the wisest of men to raise a temple to 
the living God. 

The philosopher who discovered the immediate cause of 
lightning was not inflated by his beautiful discovery : he 
was conscious of the power " which dwelleth in thick 
darkness, and sendeth out lightnings like arrows." (b) 

The philosopher who discovered the immediate cause of 
the rainbow did not rest in the proximate cause, but raised 

possible, that any one of good understanding should reject the idea, when 
once it is suggested to him. A purpose, an intention, a design, is evident 
in every thing; and when our comprehension is so far enlarged as to con- 
template the first rise of this visible system, we must adopt, with the 
strongest conviction, the idea of some intelligent cause or author. 77 

So, too, Browne in his beautiful work on Cause and Effect, says, 
"Wherever we turn our eyes, to the earth, to the heavens, to the myriads 
of beings that live and move around us, or to those more than myriads of 
worlds, which seem themselves almost like animate inhabitants of the 
infinity through which they range ; above us, beneath us, on every side, we 
discover with a certainty that admits not of doubt, intelligence and design, 
that must have preceded the existence of every thing which exists. The 
power of the Omnipotent is indeed so transcendent in itself, that the loftiest 
imagery and language which we can borrow from a few passing events in 
the boundlessness of nature, must be feeble to express its force and 
universality. 77 

(«) See note (a), preceding page. — Men will, therefore, always exist who 
may conceive themselves to be the most important beings in the universe; 
the fern is a forest to the insect below it. 

(b) Dr. Franklin, speaking of conductors, says, " A rod was fixed to the 
top of my chimney, and extended about nine feet above it. From the foot 
of this rod, a wire the thickness of a goose-quill came through a covered 
glass tube in the roof, and down through the well of the staircase; the 
lower end connected with the iron spear of a lamp. On the staircase 
opposite to my chamber door the wire was divided; the ends separated 
about six inches, a little bell on each end, and between the little brass bells 
a ball suspended by a silk thread, to play between and strike the bells 
when clouds passed with electricity in them." 



RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. CCCCxliii 

his thoughts to him who placeth his bow in the heavens. 
" Very beautiful it is in the brightness thereof: it com- 
passeth the heaven about with a glorious circle, and the 
hand of the Most High hath bended it." 

Hence, therefore, Bacon said in his youth, and repeated 
in his age, (a) " it is an assured truth, and a conclusion 



(a) His sentiments were formed at an early period of his life, and 
continued to his death. 

In a small volume which he published when he was thirty-seven years 
of age, there is a meditation upon Atheism. It was published in Latin in 
1597, and in English in 1598. The work is " Meditationes Sacra?." A 
portion of his meditation on Atheism is as follows : " ' The fool hath said 
in his heart there is no God.' First, it is to be noted, that the scripture 
saith, l The fool hath said in his heart, and not thought in his heart.' It is 
a fool that hath so said in his heart, which is most true ; not only in respect 
that he hath no taste in those things which are supernatural and divine, but 
in respect of human and civil wisdom : for first of all, if you mark the wits 
and dispositions which are inclined to atheism, you shall find them light, 
scoffing, impudent, and vain; briefly of such a constitution as is most 
contrary to wisdom and moral gravity. Secondly, amongst statesmen and 
politics, those which have been of greatest depths and compass, and of 
largest and most universal understanding, have not only in cunning made 
their profit in seeming religious to the people, but in truth have been 
touched with an inward sense of the knowledge of deity, as they which you 
shall evermore note to have attributed much to fortune and providence. 
Contrariwise, those who ascribed all things to their own cunning and prac- 
tices, and to the immediate and apparent causes, and as the prophet saith, 
' have sacrificed to their own nets,' have been always but petty counterfeit 
statesmen, and not capable of the greatest actions. Lastly, this I dare 
affirm in knowledge of nature, that a little natural philosophy, and the first 
entrance into it, doth dispose the opinion to atheism ; but on the other side, 
much natural philosophy and wading deep into it will bring about men's 
minds to religion ; wherefore atheism every way seems to be joined and 
combined with folly and ignorance, seeing nothing can be more justly 
allotted to be the saying of fools than this, ' There is no God.'" 

The first edition of his Essays, which was published with the Medi- 
tationes Sacrae, in 1597, does not contain any essay upon Atheism. The 
next time the subject is mentioned by Lord Bacon is in 1605, in the 
passage which I have cited from the Advancement of Learning. 

In 1612 Lord Bacon published an enlarged edition of his Essays, and 



statement. 



CCCCxliv LIFE OF BACON. 

of experience, that a little or superficial knowledge of 
philosophy may incline the mind of man to atheism, but 
a farther proceeding therein doth bring the mind back 
again to religion ; for in the entrance of philosophy, when 
the second causes, which are next unto the senses, do offer 
themselves to the mind of man, if it dwell and stay there, 
it may induce some oblivion of the highest cause; but 
when a man passeth on farther, and seeth the dependence 
of causes, and the works of providence ; then, according to 
the allegory of the poets, he will easily believe that the 
highest link of nature's chain must needs be tied to the 
foot of Jupiter's chair." (a) 
Rawley's The testimony of his friends is of the same nature. His 
chaplain and biographer, Dr. Rawley, says, " That this 
lord was religious and conversant with God, appeareth 
by several passages throughout the whole current of his 
writings. He repaired frequently, when his health would 
permit him, to the service of the church ; to hear sermons ; 
to the administration of the sacrament of the blessed body 
and blood of Christ ; and died in the true faith established 
in the Church of England." (b) 



in this edition there is an essay on Atheism, containing the very same 
sentiments. In 1623, he repeats it in his treatise De Augmentis; and in 
1625, the year before his death, he published another edition of his Essays, 
in which there are additions and alterations, and considerable improvement 
of the essay on Atheism, but a repetition of the same opinion : " I had 
rather believe all the fables in the legend, and the Talmud, and the Alcoran, 
than that this universal frame is without a mind; and, therefore, God 
never wrought miracle to convince atheism, because his ordinary works 
convince it. It is true that a little philosophy inclineth man's mind to 
atheism, but depth in philos6phy bringeth men's minds about to religion ; 
for while the mind of man looketh upon second causes scattered, it may 
sometimes rest in them, and go no further; but when it beholdeth the chain 
of them confederate and linked together, it must needs fly to providence 
and deity." 

(a) 8 Iliad. (b) Life by Rawley. 



HIS WILL. CCCCxlv 

His will thus opens : " I bequeath my soul and body His will. 
into the hands of God by the blessed oblation of my 
Saviour; the one at the time of my dissolution, the other 
at the time of my resurrection. " — Such are the proofs of 
his religious opinions. 

His version of the Psalms was the last of his literary 
labours. 

In the autumn, he retired to Gorhambury. 

In the latter end of October he wrote to Mr. Palmer. 

Good Mr. Palmer, — I thank God, by means of the sweet 
air of the country, I have obtained some degree of health. 
Sending to the court, I thought I would salute you; and 
I would be glad, in this solitary time and place, to hear 
a little from you how the world goeth, according to your 
friendly manner heretofore. Fare ye well, most heartily. 
Your very affectionate and assured friend, 
Gorhambury, Oct. 29, 1625. Fr. St. AlbAN. 

In November he wrote to the Duke of Buckingham, (a) 
The severe winter which followed the infectious summer 

of this year brought him very low. 

On the 19th of December he made his will. 

(a) Excellent Lord, — I could not but signify unto your 
grace my rejoicing, that God hath sent your grace a son 
and heir, and that you are fortunate as well in your house, 
as in the state of the kingdom. These blessings come from 
God, as I do not doubt but your grace doth, with all 
thankfulness, acknowledge, vowing to him your service. 
Myself, I praise his divine Majesty, have gotten some step 
into health. My wants are great; but yet I want not a 
desire to do your grace service; and I marvel, that your 
grace should think to pull down the monarchy of Spain 
without my good help. Your grace will give me leave to be 
merry, however the world goeth with me. I ever rest, Sec. 



CCCCxlvi LIFE OF BACON. 

A. D. In the spring of 1626 his strength and spirits revived, 
j£ t qq and he returned to his favourite seclusion in Gray's Inn, 
Cause of from whence, on the 2nd of April, either in his way to 
his death. Gorhambury, or when making an excursion into the 
country, with Dr. Witherborne, the King's physician, it 
occurred to him, as he approached Highgate, the snow 
lying on the ground, that it might be deserving conside- 
ration, whether flesh might not be preserved as well in 
snow as in salt; and he resolved immediately to try the 
experiment. They alighted out of the coach, and went 
into a poor woman's house at the bottom of Highgate Hill, 
and bought a hen, and stuffed the body with snow, and 
my lord did help to do it himself. The snow chilled him, 
and he immediately fell so extremely ill, that he could 
not return to Gray's Inn, but was taken to the Earl of 
Arundel's house, at Highgate, where he was put into a 
warm bed, but it was damp, and had not been slept in for 
a year before, (a) 

Whether Sir Thomas Meautys or Dr. Rawley could be 
found does not appear ; but a messenger was immediately 
sent to his relation, the Master of the Rolls, the charitable 
Sir Julius Caesar, then grown so old, that he was said to 
be kept alive beyond nature's course, by the prayers of 
the many poor whom he daily relieved, (b) He instantly 
attended his friend, who, confined to his bed, and so en- 
feebled that he was unable to hold a pen, could still 
exercise his lively fancy. He thus wrote to Lord Arundel : 

His last " My very good Lord, 

letter. u j was iik e i v to have had the fortune of Cajus Plinius 

the elder, who lost his life by trying an experiment about 
the burning of the Mountain Vesuvius. For 1 was also 

(a) Aubrey. (b) See Wotton's Remains. 



HIS DEATH. CCCCxlvii 

desirous to try an experiment or two, touching the conser- 
vation and induration of bodies. As for the experiment 
itself, it succeeded excellently well; but in the journey 
between London and Highgate I was taken with such a 
fit of casting, as I knew not whether it were the stone, or 
some surfeit, or cold, or indeed a touch of them all three. 
But when I came to your lordship's house, I was not able 
to go back, and therefore was forced to take up my lodging 
here, where your housekeeper is very careful and diligent 
about me, which I assure myself your lordship will not 
only pardon towards him, but think the better of him for 
it. For indeed your lordship's house was happy to me; 
and I kiss your noble hands for the welcome which I am 
sure you give me to it. 

" I know how unfit it is for me to write to your lordship 
with any other hand than my own ; but by my troth, my 
fingers are so disjointed with this fit of sickness, that I 
cannot steadily hold a pen." 

This was his last letter. He died in the arms of Sir 
Julius Csesar, early on the morning of Easter Sunday, the 
9th of April, 1626, in the sixty-sixth year of his age. (a) 

On opening his will, his wish to be buried at St. Albans Opening 
thus appears : " For my burial, I desire it may be in 
St. Michael's church, near St. Albans : there was my 
mother buried, and it is the parish church of my mansion- 
house of Gorhambury, and it is the only Christian church 
within the walls of Old Verulam." 



(a) He died on the ninth day of April, in the year 1626, in the early 
morning of the day then celebrated for our Saviour's resurrection, in the 
sixty-sixth year of his age, at the Earl of Arundel's house in Highgate, near 
London, to which place he casually repaired about a week before, God so 
ordaining that he should die there of a gentle fever, accidentally accom- 
panied with a great cold, whereby the defluxion of rheum fell so plentifully 
upon his breast, that he died of suffocation. — Rawley. 



his will. 



ccccxlviii 



LIFE OF BACON. 



Funeral. 



Monu- 
ment. 



Of his funeral no account can be found, nor is there 
any trace of the scite of the house where he died, (a) 

He is buried in the same grave with his mother in St. 
Michael's church. 

On his monument he is represented sitting in contem- 
plation, his hand supporting his head, (b) 

FRANCISCUS BACON. BARO DE VERT!!,!; S«: ALBni; VICms : 

SEU NOTIORIBUS TITULIS. 

SCIENTIARUM LUMEN. FACUNDIjE LEX. 

sic sedebat: 

QUI POSTQUAM OMNIA NATURALIS SAPIENTIAL 

ET CIVILIS ARCANA EVOLVISSET 

NATURE DECRETUM EXPLEVIT 

COMPOSITA SOLVANTUR. 

AN DEI MDCCVI 

jETAT 9 LXVI 



TANTI VIRI 

MEM. 

THOMAS MEAUTYS 

SUPERSTITIS CULTOR 

DEFUNCTI ADMIRATOR 

H P 



Meautys. This monument, erected by his faithful secretary, has 
transmitted to posterity the image of his person; and, 
though no statue could represent his mind, his attitude of 
deep and tranquil thought cannot be seen without emotion. 
No sculptured form gives the lineaments of Sir Thomas 
Meautys. A plain stone records the fact, that he lies at 
his master's feet. Much time will not pass away before 



(a) I have sought, but sought in vain, for the scite of the house where 
he died. — See the Gentleman's Magazine, June, 1828. 

(b) With an inscription composed by that accomplished gentleman and 
rare wit, Sir Henry Wotton. — Rawley. 

The statue is of white marble, which is very finely executed of the size 
of life, by an Italian artist. 



HIS MONUMENT. CCCCxlix 

the few letters which may now be seen upon his grave 
will be effaced. His monument will be found in the vene- 
ration of after times, in the remembrance of his grateful 
adherence to the fallen fortunes of his master, " that he 
loved and admired him in life, and honoured him when 
dead." (a) 



(a) In page 104 of the edition by the learned and pious John Jebb, 
Bishop of Limerick, of Burnet's Lives, is the following note : " Such, and 
yet more striking, was Lord Bacon's inflexible adherent, Thomas Meautys : 
who transmitted to posterity the monumental image of his person, in an 
attitude of deep, yet tranquil thought ; while he himself lies, unsculptured, 
but not forgotten, at his master's feet. Few and faint are the inscriptive 
characters which can now be traced of the modest secretary's name ; but it 
is deeply engraven on many a kind and congenial heart. He who now 
guides the pen once visited the church of Saint Michael, within the precincts 
of Old Verulam. He trusts he did so with no irreverent emotion; and, 
while he read the thrilling sic sedebat, he thought upon the faithful servant, 
who never viewed him so seated but with affectionate veneration." 

The following is an extract from my Journal : — Thursday, Oct. 8, 1829. 
On Sunday morning last we left London for St. Albans. We went to 
St. Michael's Church, and sat by the altar, near to the monument. After 
church we walked to Gorhambury: explored the ruins of Sir Nicholas 
Bacon's old mansion, where Lord Bacon lived when a child, and where 
when he was a child Queen Elizabeth first noticed him. A few of the ruins 
remain. All is still and quiet. On Monday morning we took the clerk of 
St. Michael's, and went to the church : we took a wet sponge, to enable me 
to ascertain whether my opinion as to the grave of Sir Thomas Meawtys 
was right or erroneous. After our washings we found the inscription as 
follows : 

TH TFE BODY OF SR 
M^WV^YS V T 



Pew. 



I am satisfied that, upon removing the pew, which is now upon part of the 
stone, there will appear, in the first line, here lie, and in the second line, 
thomas, so that the inscription will be plain : 



HERE LIETH THE BODY OF SR 
THOMAS MEAWTYS KT. 



I directed the clerk to ascertain what will be the expense of raising the 
pew; and, if necessary, I will apply to Lord Verulam and to the Rector. 
VOL. XV. P' o- 



CCCcl LIFE OF BACON. 

CONCLUSION. 

In his analysis of human nature, Bacon considers first 
the general properties of man, and then the peculiar 
properties of his body and of his mind, (a) This mode 
may be adopted in reviewing his life. 
His tem- He was of a temperament of the most delicate sensibility : 
peramen . gQ g^ftable, as to be affected by the slightest alterations 
in the atmosphere, (b) It is probable that the temperament 
of genius may much depend upon such possibility, (c) 
and that to this cause the excellencies and failures of 
Bacon may frequently be traced. His health was always 
delicate, and, to use his own expression, he was all his life 
puddering with physic, (e) 
His person. He was of a middle stature, and well proportioned; his 
features were handsome and expressive, and his counte- 
nance, until it was injured by politics and worldly warfare, 
singularly placid. There is a portrait of him when he 
was only eighteen now extant, on which the artist has 
recorded his despair of doing justice to his subject, 
by the inscription " Si tabula daretur digna, animum 
mallem. (f) His portraits differ beyond what may be 

(a) See p. 135. (b) See note Gat the end, and note (a), next page. 

(c) See Coleridge's Aids to Reflection, where he considers this sensibility 
to be the foundation of the temperament of genius; that, rightly directed, 
it leads to all that is great and good ; wrongly directed, to all that is bad 
and vicious ; and that in the twilight between both, there lies sentimentality 
more injurious perhaps than open vice. — To the same effect Lord Bacon 
says : " In the law of the leprosy it is said, ' If the whiteness overspread 
the flesh, the patient may pass abroad for clean : but if there be any whole 
flesh remaining, he is to be shut up for unclean.' One of the rabbins 
noteth a principle of moral philosophy, that men abandoned to vice do not 
so much corrupt manners as those that are half good and half evil." 

(e) See his letter to Sir Humphry May, vol. xii. p. 407. 

(f) See note (a), p. 17. The original is in the possession of Adam 
Hawkins, Esq. who kindly permitted me to take a copy, from which the 
slight engraving in this edition is taken. 



CONCLUSION. CCCcli 

considered a fair allowance for the varying skill of the 
artist, or the natural changes which time wrought upon 
his person; but none of them contradict the description 
given by one who knew him well, u that he had a spacious 
forehead and piercing eye, looking upward as a soul in 
sublime contemplation, a countenance worthy of one who 
was to set free captive philosophy." (a) 

His life of mind was never exceeded, perhaps never 
equalled. When a child Mind. 

" No childish play to him was pleasing :" 

(a) Evelyn on Medals. The following observations respecting his 
person are from Rawley's life. " It hath been desired that something 
should be signified touching his diet, and the regimen of his health ; of 
which, in regard of his universal insight into nature, he may perhaps be to 
some an example. For his diet, it was rather a plentiful and liberal diet, 
as his stomach would bear it, than a restrained, which he also commended 
in his book of the History of Life and Death. In his younger years he 
was much given to the finer and lighter sorts of meat, as of fowls and such 
like ; but afterward, when he grew more judicious, he preferred the stronger 
meats such as the shambles afforded, as those meats which bred the more 
firm and substantial juices of the body, and less dissipable : upon which 
he would often make his meal, though he had other meats upon the table. 
You may be sure he would not neglect that himself, which he so much 
extolled in his writings, and that was the use of nitre, whereof he took in 
the quantity of about three grains in thin warm broth every morning for 
thirty 7 years together next before his death . And for physic he did indeed 
live physically but not miserably ; for he took only a maceration of rhubarb 
infused into a draught of white wine and beer mingled together for the 
space of half an hour in six or seven days, immediately before his meal, 
whether dinner or supper, that it might dry the body less, which (as he 
said) did carry away frequently the grosser humours of the body, and not 
diminish or carry away any of the spirits, as sweating doth ; and this was 
no grievous thing to take: as for other physic in an ordinary way (whatso- 
ever hath been vulgarly spoken) he took not. His receipt for the gout, 
which did constantly ease him of his pain within two hours, is already set 
down in the end of the Natural History. It may seem the moon had some 
principal place in the figure of his nativity, for the moon was never in her 
passion, or eclipsed, but he was surprised with a sudden fit of fainting, and 
that, though he observed not, nor took any previous knowledge of the 
eclipse thereof, and as soon as the eclipse ceased, he was restored to his 
former strength again." 






CCCClii LIFE OF BACON. 

while his companions were diverting themselves in the 
park he was occupied in meditating upon the causes of 
the echoes (a) and the nature of imagination, (b) In after 
life he was a master of the science of harmony, (c) and 
the laws of imagination he studied with peculiar care, (d) 
and well understood. The same penetration he extended 
to colours, (f) and to the heavenly bodies, (g) and predicted 

(«) See ante, page 3. (b) See note (t), page 4. 

(c) Sir John Hawkins, in his History of Music, says, " Lord Bacon, in 
his Natural History has given a great variety of experiments touching 
music, that shew him to have been, not barely a philosopher, an inquirer 
into phenomena of sound, but a master of the science of harmony, and very 
intimately acquainted with the precepts of musical composition." 

(d) See 10th Century of Sylva, vol. iv. See Stewart's Dissertation. 
{f) See his solitary Instances in the Novum Organum. See p. 290. 

A rainbow and a piece of glass in a stable window both shew the prismatic 
colours ; but there is nothing common between the rainbow and the stable 
window, save this power of shewing the colour. Does not colour depend 
upon the refractive power of these bodies ? 

(.§) " Quicunque enim superlunarium et sublunarium conficta divortia 
contempserit, et materiae appetitus et passiones maxime catholicas (quae in 
utroque globo validae sunt, et universitatem rerum transverberant) bene 
perspexerit, is ex illis quae apud nos cernuntur luculentam capiet de rebus 
ccelestibus informationem." 

Whoever shall reject the feigned divorces of superlunary and sublunary 
bodies, and shall intentively observe the appetences of matter and the 
most universal passions, which in either globe are exceeding potent, and 
transverberate the universal nature of things, he shall receive clear informa- 
tion concerning celestial matters from the things seen here with us; and 
contrariwise, from those motions which are practised in heaven, he shall 
learn many observations which now are latent, touching the motion of 
bodies here below, not only so far as their inferior motions are moderated 
by superior, but in regard they have a mutual intercourse by passions 
common to them both. 

" We must openly profess that our hope of discovering the truth, with 
regard to the celestial bodies, depends upon the observation of the common 
properties, or the passions and appetites of the matter of both states; for, 
as to the separation that is supposed betwixt the ethereal and sublunary 
bodies, it seems to me no more than a fiction, and a degree of superstition 



conclusion. ccccliii 

the modes by which their laws would be discovered, and 
which, after the lapse of a century, were so beautifully 
elucidated by Newton. 

The extent of his views was immense. He stood on a Extent ( 
cliff, and surveyed the whole of nature. His vigilant 
observation of what we, in common parlance, call trifles, 
was, perhaps, more extraordinary : scarcely a pebble on the 
shore escaped his notice. It is thus that genius is, from 
its life of mind, attentive to all things, and, from seeing 
real union in the apparent discrepancies of nature, deduces 
general truths from particular instances. 

His powers were varied and in great perfection, (a) 
His senses were exquisitely acute, (b) and he used them Senses. 

mixed with rashness, &c. Our chiefest hope and dependance in the con- 
sideration of the celestial bodies is, therefore, placed in physical reasons, 
though not such as aie commonly so called; but those laws, which no 
diversity of place or region can abolish, break through, disturb or alter." 

(a) "Those abilities," says Dr.Rawley, " which commonly 
go single in other men, though of prime and observable 
parts, were all conjoined and met in him; sharpness of 
wit, memory, judgment, and elocution. I have been in- 
duced to think, that if ever there were a beam of know- 
ledge derived from God upon any man in these modern 
times, it was upon him; for, though he was a great reader 
of books, yet he had not his knowledge from books, but 
from some grounds and notions from within himself." 

" For the former three, his books do abundantly speak them, which 
with what sufficiency he wrote let the world judge, but with what celerity 
he wrote them I can best testify ; but for the fourth, his elocution, I will 
only set down what I heard Sir Walter Rawleigh once speak of him by 
way of comparison (whose judgment may well be trusted), ' That the Earl 
of Salisbury was an excellent speaker, but no good penman; that the 
Earl of Northampton (the Lord Henry Howard) was an excellent penman, 
but no good speaker; but that Sir Francis Bacon was eminent in both.'" 
— See Ben Jonson's observations, ante, p. 28. 

(b) Aubrey. See note G at the end. 



CCCcliv LIFE OF BACON. 

to dissipate illusions, by holding firm to the works of 
God and to the sense, which is God's lamp, Lucerna Dei, 
splraculum hominis" (a) 

Imagina- His imagination was fruitful and vivid; but he under- 
stood its laws, and governed it with absolute sway. He 
used it as a philosopher. It never had precedence in his 
mind but followed in the train of his reason. With her 
hues, her forms, and the spirit of her forms, he clothed 
the nakedness of austere truth, (b) 

Under- He was careful in improving the excellencies, and in 

in mg. diminishing the defects of his understanding, whether 
from inability at particular times to acquire knowledge or 
inability to acquire particular sorts of knowledge, (c) 

Temporary As to temporary inability, his golden rules were, " 1st, 

ma i ity. p« x g 00C ^ obliterate bad times, (d) 2ndly, In studies what- 

(a) Sylva, Cent. x. vol. iv. 

(b) See text, p. 134, and note RRR, and the Excursion. 

(c) That understanding is in a sound state for the acquisition of know- 
ledge which is capable at any time to acquire any sort of knowledge. The 
defects of the understanding are, therefore, disabilities, 

Disinclination. 
Fatigue. 
Interruption. 
As to particular knowledge. 

(d) There is a kind of culture of the mind which is built upon this 
ground, that the minds of all mortals are at some times in a more perfect 
state : at other times in a more depraved state. The objects, therefore, of 
this culture are, the fixation of good times and the obliteration of bad times, 
that the good seasons may be cherished, and the evil crossed and expunged 
out of the calendar. — Bacon. 

The mind is brought to any thing with more sweetness and happiness, 
if that whereunto we pretend be not first in the intention, but " tanquam 
aliud agendo." If a favourable gale spring up, hoist the sail. 

Be surrounded by different instruments of knowledge, that you may 
gratify your immediate desire. — " Dr. Johnson advised me to-day," says 
Boswell, " to have as many books about me as I could, that I might read 
upon any subject upon which I had a desire for instruction at the time. 
1 What you read then/ said he, ' you will remember; but if you have not 



5 uiiutioiouiuiiig a.L^ } uiutwit, 

ri. e 

f 1. As to time, from S 2. F 

\ U. l 

L2. As to particular knowle( 



TEMPORARY INABILITY. CCCclv 

soever a man commandeth upon himself, let him set hours 
for it; but whatever is agreeable to his nature, let him 
take no care for any set hours, for his thoughts will fly to 
it of themselves." (a) — He so mastered and subdued his 
mind as to counteract disinclination to study ; (b) and he 

a book immediately ready, and the subject moulds in your mind, it is a 
chance if you again have a desire to study it/ " 

Dr. Johnson said, " If a man begins to read in the middle of a book, 
and feels an inclination to go on, let him not quit it to go to the beginning ; 
he may perhaps not feel again the inclination." — Boswell's Life, p. 405. 

(a) Bacon, speaking of Queen Elizabeth, says, " This lady was endowed 
with learning in her sex singular, and rare even amongst masculine princes ; 
whether we speak of learning, of language, or of science modern or ancient, 
divinity or humanity ; and unto the very last of her life she accustomed to 
appoint set hours for reading, scarcely any young student in an university 
more daily or more duly." 

But the most effectual expedient employed by Alfred for the encourage- 
ment of learning was his own example, and the constant assiduity with 
which, notwithstanding the multiplicity and urgency of his affairs, he em- 
ployed himself in the pursuits of knowledge. He usually divided his 
time into three equal portions : one was employed in sleep and the refection 
of his body by diet and exercise ; another in the dispatch of business ; a 
third in study and devotion : and that he might more exactly measure the 
hours, he made use of burning tapers of equal length, which he fixed in 
Ian thorns : an expedient suited to that rude age, when the geometry of 
dialling and the mechanism of clocks and watches was entirely unknown. 
And by such a regular distribution of his time, though he often laboured 
under great bodily infirmities, this martial hero, who fought in person fifty- 
six battles by sea and land, was able during a life of no extraordinary 
length to acquire more knowledge, and even to compose more books, than 
most studious men, though blest with the greatest leisure and application, 
have in more fortunate ages made the object of their uninterrupted 
industry. — Hume. 

Dr. Johnson said, " If a man never has an eager desire for instruction 
he should prescribe a task for himself; if he has a science to learn he must 
regularly and resolutely advance." 

(b) As in the improvement of the understanding, the mind ought always 
to be employed on some subject from which it is averse, that it may obtain 
the mastery over itself: so two seasons are chiefly to be observed; the one 
when the mind is best disposed to a business, the other when it is worst, 
that by the one we may be well forwards on our way, by the latter we may 



CCCcWi LIF£ OF BACON". 

prevented fatigue by stopping in due time r (c) by a 
judicious intermission (d) of studies, and by never plodding 

by a strenuous contention work out the knots and stonds of the mind, and 
make it pliant for other occasions. 

Somebody talked of happy moments for composition, and how a man 
can write at one time and not at another. i( Nay," said Dr. Johnson, " a 
man may write at any time if he will set himself doggedly to it." 

Johnson told us, almost all his Ramblers were written just as they were 
wanted for the press ; that he sent a certain portion of the copy of an essay, 
and wrote the remainder while the former part of it was printing. When it 
was wanted, and he had fairly sat down to it he was sure it would be done. 

Dr. Johnson would allow no settled indulgence of idleness upon 
principle, and always repelled every attempt to urge excuses for it. A 
friend one day suggested, that it was not wholesome to study soon after 
dinner. Johnson said, " Ah, sir, don't give way to such a fancy : at one 
time of my life I had taken it into my head that it was not wholesome to 
study between breakfast and dinner." 

Thou shalt find, that deferring breeds, besides the loss, an indisposition 
to good ; so that what was before pleasant to thee, being omitted, to-morrow 
grows harsh, the next day unnecessary, afterwards odious. To-day thou 
canst, but wilt not; to-morrow thou couldst, but listest not; the next day 
thou neither wilt, nor canst bend thy mind on these thoughts. So I have 
seen friends, that, upon neglect of duty, grow overly, upon overliness ; 
strange, upon strangeness, to utter defiance. 

Perhaps the two following rules may assist this defect. 

1 . Ascertain the cause of the disinclination, and counteract it. 

2. Form the habit of conquering your indisposition to study at particular 
times. 

(c) We do not call for a perpetuity of this labour of meditation : human 
frailty could never bear so great a toil. Nothing under heaven is capable 
of a continual motion, without complaint : it is enough for the glorified 
spirits above, to be ever thinking and never weary. The mind of man is 
of a strange metal; if it be not used, it rusteth ; if used hardly, it breaketh. 

For he would ever interlace a moderate relaxation of his mind with his 
studies, as walking, or taking the air abroad in his coach, or some other 
befitting recreation ; and yet he would lose no time, inasmuch as upon his 
first and immediate return, he would fall to reading again, and so suffer no 
moment of time to slip from him without some present improvement. 

Rawley. 

(d) Rawley. — What a heaven lives a scholar in, that at once in one 
close room can daily converse with all the glorious martyrs and fathers: 
that can single out at pleasure either sententious Tertullian, or grave 



TEMPORARY INABILITY. CCCclvii 

upon books; for, although he read incessantly, he win- 
nowed quickly, (a) — Interruption was only a diversion of 

Cyprian, or resolute Jerome, or flowing Chrysostome, or divine Ambrose, 
or devout Bernard, or (who alone is all these) heavenly Augustine : and 
talk with them and hear their wise and holy counsels, and so mix their 
parts, that the pleasantries of the one may temper the austereness of the 
other. Let us hold with that blessed Monica, that such like cogitations 
are the food of the mind, yet even the mind also has her satiety, and may 
surfeit of too much. — Boyle's Meditations. 

One while mine eyes are busied, another while my hand, and some- 
times my mind takes the burthen from them both ; wherein I would imitate 
the skilfullest cooks, which make the best dishes with manifold mixtures : 
one hour is spent in textual divinity, another in controversy ; histories relieve 
them both. Now when the mind is weary of other labours, it begins to 
undertake her own; sometimes it meditates and winds up for future use; 
sometimes it lays forth her conceits into present discourse ; sometimes for 
itself, ofter for others. Neither know I whether it works or plays in those 
thoughts : I am sure no sport hath more pleasure, no work more use ; only 
the decay of a weak body makes me think these delights insensibly 
laborious. Thus could I all day (as singers use) make myself music with 
changes, and complain sooner of the day for shortness than of the business 
for toil, were it not that this faint monitor interrupts me still in the midst 
of my busy pleasures, and enforces me both to respite and repast : I must 
yield to both; while my body and mind are joined together in unequal 
couples, the better must follow the weaker. 

Le changement d'etude est toujours un delassement pour moi. 

D'Aguesseau. 
(a) " He was no plodder upon books, though he read much, and that 
with great judgment, and rejection of impertinences incident to many 
authors." — Rawley. 

" Study is like the heaven's glorious sun, 

That will not be deep searched with saucy looks ; 
Small have continual plodders ever won, 
Save bare authority from others' books." — Love's Labour's Lost. 
" I was a scholar : seven useful springs 
Did I deflower in quotations 
Of crossed opinions 'bout the soul of man ; 
The more I learnt, the more I learnt to doubt : 
Delight, my spaniel slept, whilst I baus'd leaves, 
Tossed o'er the dunces, pored on the old print 
Of titled words ; and still my spaniel slept. 
Whilst I wasted lamp-oil, baited my flesh, 



CCCclviii LIFE OF BACON. 

study ; (a) and, if necessary, he sought retirement, (b) 

Shrunk up my veins ; and still my spaniel slept. 
And still I held converse with Zabarell, 
Aquinas, Scotus, and the musty saw 
Of antick Donate : still my spaniel slept. 
Still on went I ; first, an sit anima ; 
Then, an it were mortal. O hold, hold at that 
They're at brain buffets, fell by the ears amain 
Pell-mell together : still my spaniel slept. 
Then, whether 'twere corporeal, local, fixt, 
Ex traduce, but whether I had free will 
Or no, hot philosophers 
Stood banding factions, all so strongly propt : 
I stagger'd, knew not which was firmer part, 
But thought, quoted, read, observ'd and pryed, 
Stuff 't noting books ; and still my spaniel slept. 
At length he waked, and yawned ; and by yon sky, 
For aught I know he knew as much as I." 
Marston's " What you Will," Charles Lamb's Selections, p. 84. 
See Wordsworth's Expostulation and Reply. 

(a) Johnson, in his life of Savage, says, " Out of this story he formed 
the tragedy of Sir Thomas Overbury, which, if the circumstances in which 
he wrote it be considered, will afford at once an uncommon proof of 
strength of genius and evenness of mind ; of a serenity not to be ruffled, 
and an imagination not to be suppressed. During a considerable part of 
the time in which he was employed upon this performance, he was without 
lodging and often without meat; nor had he any other conveniences for 
study than the fields or the streets allowed him : there he used to walk and 
form his speeches, and afterwards step into a shop, beg for a few moments 
the use of the pen and ink, and write down what he had composed, upon 
paper which he had picked up by accident. 

Voltaire, when shut up in the Bastille, and for aught he knew for life, 
deprived of the means either of writing or reading, arranged and in part 
executed the project of his Henriade. — Vide de Voltaire, par M. . . . a. 
Geneve, 1786, chap. iv. Godwin's Political Justice, p. 322. 

Brutus when a soldier under Pompey, in the civil wars, employed all 
his leisure in study ; and the very day before the battle of Pharsalia, though 
it was in the middle of summer, and the camp under many privations, 
spent all his time till the evening in writing an epitome of Polybius. 

Plutarch in Brut. 

(b) Places of learning should be retired, tending to quietness and pri- 
vateness of life, and discharge of cares and troubles : much like the stations 
which Virgil prescribeth for the hiving of bees. 



TEMPORARY INABILITY. CCCclix 

Of inability to acquire particular sorts of knowledge he Particular 
was scarcely conscious. He was interested in all truths, and, 
by investigations in his youth upon subjects from which he 
was averse, he wore out the knots and stonds of his mind, 
and made it pliant to all inquiry, (a) — He contemplated 



Principio sedes apibus statioque petenda 
Quo neque sit ventis aditus, &c. Bacon. 

We are not to indulge ourselves in excuses from study ; for if we think 
we never are to apply to it, but when we are vigorous, in high spirits, and 
free from all manner of other care, we shall always find pretexts to excuse 
us to ourselves. Let us always therefore find food for meditation, whether 
we are in a crowd, upon a journey, at table, or even amidst a tumult. 

Silence, retirement, and a perfect tranquillity of mind, are indeed the 
greatest friends to study, but they do not always fall to a man's share. If 
therefore we should sometimes be interrupted, we are not immediately to 
throw away our papers, and give our time up for lost : no, we ought to get 
the better of difficulties, and to acquire such a habit as to surmount all 
impediments by resolution and application. For if you resolve and apply 
in earnest, and with the whole force of your mind to what you are about, 
that which may offend your eyes or ears never can disorder your under- 
standing. Does it not often happen, that an accidental thought throws us 
into so profound a train of study, that we do not see the people we meet, 
and sometimes wander out of our way ? May not this always be our case, 
especially when our study is not the effect of accident but of determination. 

Quintillian. 

(a) Rule. Engage in studies opposite to the favourite pursuit. Histories 
make men wise; poetry, witty; the mathematics, subtle; natural phi- 
losophy, deep, moral, grave; logic and rhetoric, able to contend. Abeunt 
studia in mores. Nay, there is no stond or impediment in the wit, but 
may be wrought out by fit studies. Like as diseases of the body may have 
appropriated exercises : bowling is good for the stone and reins ; shooting 
for the lungs and breast; gentle walking for the stomach; riding for the 
head, and the like. So if a man's wit be wandering, let him study the mathe- 
matics ; for in demonstrations, if his wit be called away never so little, he 
must begin again : if his wit be not apt to distinguish or find differences, 
let him study the schoolmen ; for they are Cymini sectores : if he be not 
apt to beat over matters, and to call up one thing to prove and illustrate 
another, let him study the lawyer's cases : so every defect of the mind may 
have a special receipt. 

Rule. Master your mind by continually investigating subjects from which 
you are averse. — Let the mind be daily employed upon some subject from 



CCCclx LIFE OF BACON. 

nature in detail and in mass: he contracted the sight 
of his mind and dilated it. (b) — He saw differences in 

which it is averse, that, by wearing out the knots and stonds of the mind, 
it may become pliant on other occasions. 

Bear ever toward the contrary of that whereunto you are by nature 
inclined, that you may bring the mind straight from its warp. Like as 
when we row against the stream, or when we make a crooked wand straight, 
by bending it the contrary way. 

Fixedness of mind, or mental attention to a particular subject, will not, 
of course, be mistaken for fixedness of studies, or ability to attend only to 
particular pursuits. 

(6) To contemplate nature and bodies in their simplicity, breaks and 
grinds the understanding, and to consider them in their compositions and 
configurations, blunts and relaxes ; as appears plainly from comparing the 
school of Leucippus and Democritus with the other philosophies. For the 
former is so taken up with the particles of things, as almost to neglect their 
structure, while the other views the fabrication of things with such astonish- 
ment as not to enter into the simplicity of nature. Both these contempla- 
tions, therefore, are to be taken up by turns, that the understanding may at 
once be rendered more piercing and capacious, and the inconveniences 
prevented. 

He who cannot contract his sight should consider as an oracle the saying 
of the poor woman to the haughty prince, who rejected her petition, as a 
thing below his dignity to notice — "then cease to reign :" for it is certain 
that whoever will not attend to matters because they are too minute or 
trifling shall never obtain command or rule over nature. The nature of 
every thing is best seen in its smallest portions. The philosopher, while 
he gazed upwards to the stars, fell into the water ; but if he had looked 
down, he might have seen the stars in the water. The property of the 
loadstone was dicovered in needles of iron, and not in bars of iron. 

He who cannot dilate the sight of his mind should consider whether it is 
not better for a man in a fair room to set up one great light or branching 
candlestick of lights, than to go about with a small watch-candle into 
every corner. 

The true strong and sound mind is the mind that can embrace equally 
great things and small. I am told the King of Prussia will say to a servant, 
bring me a bottle of such a wine, which came in such a year, it lies in 
such a corner of the cellar. I would have a man great in great things, and 
elegant in little things. — Dr. Johnson. 

" That servant has committed twenty-one faults since we sat down to 
dinner," said Swift to Lord Orrery. — Johnson's Life. 



PARTICULAR STUDIES. CCCClxi 

apparent resemblances, and resemblances in apparent 
differences, (a) — He had not any attachment either to 
antiquity or novelty, (b) — He prevented mental aberration 
by studies which produced fixedness, (c) and fixedness 

This great man's attention to small things was very remarkable : as an 
instance of it, he one day said to me, " Sir, when you get silver in change 
for a guinea, look carefully at it, you may find some curious piece of coin." 

Johnson, vol. i. 3. 

(a) The great and radical difference of capacities as to philosophy and 
the sciences lies here, that some are stronger and fitter to observe the 
differences of things, and others to observe their correspondences ; for a 
steady and sharp genius can fix its contemplations, and dwell and fasten 
upon all the subtlety of differences, whilst a sublime and ready genius per- 
ceives and compares the smallest and most general agreements of things ; 
but both kinds easily fall into excess, by grasping either at the dividing 
scale or shadow of things. 

(b) Bacon says, that one of the distempers of learning is an extreme 
affection of two extremities, antiquity and novelty ; wherein the daughters 
of time do take after the father; for as time devoureth his children, so these 
one of them seeketh to depress the other; while antiquity envieth there 
should be new additions, and novelty cannot be content to add things 
recent, but it must deface and reject the old. Surely the advice of the 
prophet is the true direction in this case, state super vias antiquas et videte 
quanam sit via recta et bona et ambulate in ea. Antiquity deserveth that 
reverence, that men should make a stay awhile, and stand thereupon, and 
look about to discover which is the best way ; but when the discovery is 
well taken, then not to rest there, but cheerfully to make progression. 
Indeed to speak truly, Antiquitas seculi, Juventus Mundi ; certainly our 
times are the ancient times, when the world is now ancient, and not those 
which we count ancient, or dine retrogrado, by a computation backward 
from our own times. — His works abound with similar observations. 

(c) Men do not sufficiently understand the excellent use of the pure 
mathematics, in that they do remedy and cure many defects in the wit and 
faculties intellectual. For if the wit be too dull, they sharpen it; if two 
wandering, they fix it ; if too inherent in the sense, they abstract it. So 
that as tennis is a game of no use in itself, but of great use in respect it 
maketh a quick eye and a body ready to be put into all postures, so in the 
mathematics, that use which is collateral and intervenient is no less worthy 
than that which is principal and intended. 

This is to be exactly observed, that not only exceeding great progression 
may be made in those studies, to which a man is swayed by a natural 



ccccl 



Xll 



LIFE OF BACOX. 



by keeping his mind alive and open to perpetual improve- 
ment, (a) 
Memory. The theory of memory he understood and explained : (b) 
and in its practice he was perfect. He knew much, and 
what he once knew he seldom forgot. 

In his compositions his first object was clearness: to 
reduce marvels to plain things, not to inflate plain things 
into marvels, (c) He was not attached either to method 



Composi 
tion. 



proclivity ; but also that there may be found, in studies properly selected 
for that purpose, cures and remedies to promote such kind of knowledge, 
to the impressions whereof a man may, by some imperfection of nature, be 
most unapt and insufficient. As for example, if a man be bird-witted, 
that is, quickly carried away, and hath not patient faculty of attention, the 
mathematics give a remedy thereunto; wherein, if the wit be caught away 
but for a moment, the demonstration is new to begin. 

Burke always read a book, as if he were never to see it again. 

Locke says, a proper and effectual remedy for this wandering of thoughts 
I should be glad to find. 

Newton used to say, that if there were any difference between him and 
other men, it consisted in his fixing his eye steadily on the object which he 
had in view, and waiting patiently for every idea as it presented itself, 
without wandering or hurrying. 

(a) Certainly custom is most perfect when it beginneth in young years, 
this we call education, which is in effect but an early custom. So we see 
in languages, the tongue is more pliant to all expressions and sounds ; the 
joints are more supple to all feats of activity and motions in youth than 
afterwards; for it is true that late learners cannot so well take the ply, 
except it be in some minds that have not suffered themselves to fix, but 
have kept their minds open and prepared to receive continual amendment, 
which is exceeding rare. 

Locke says, " There are men who converse but with one sort of men, 
they read but one sort of books, they will not come in the hearing but of 
one sort of notions ; the truth is, they canton out to themselves a little 
Goshen in the intellectual world, where light shines, and as they conclude, 
day blesses ; but the rest of that vast expansum they give up to night and 
darkness, and so avoid coming near it. — See the Conduct of the Under- 
standing; where there are many valuable observations on this subject. 

(6) See ante, p. 292. 

(c) In the composing of his books he did rather drive at a masculine and 
clear expression, than at fineness or affectation of phrases, and would often 
ask if the meaning were expressed plainly enough, as being one that 



CAUSES OF ENTERING ACTIVE LIFE. CCCclxiH 

or to ornament, although he adopted both to insure a 
favourable reception for abstruse truths. 

Such is a faint outline of his mind, which " like the 
sun had both light and agility; it knew no rest but in 
motion, no quiet but in activity: it did not so properly 
apprehend, as irradiate the object; not so much find, as 
make things intelligible. There was no poring, no strug- 
gling with memory, no straining for invention ; his faculties 
were quick and expedite ; they were ready upon the first 
summons, there was freedom and firmness in all their 
operations, his understanding could almost pierce into 
future contingents, his conjectures improving even to 
prophecy ; (a) he saw consequents yet dormant in their 
principles, and effects yet unborn, in the womb of their 
causes." 

How much is it to be lamented that such a mind, with 
such a temperament, was not altogether devoted to con- 
templation, to the tranquil pursuit of knowledge, and the 
calm delights of piety. 

That in his youth he should quit these pleasant paths Causes of 

for the troubles and trappings of public life would be en termg 

rr ° r active life. 

a cause for wonder, if it were not remembered that man 

amongst men is a social being; and, however he may 

abstract himself in his study, or climb the hill above 

him, he must daily mingle with their hopes and fears, 

their wishes and affections. He was cradled in politics: 

to be Lord Keeper was the boundary of the horizon 

drawn by his parents. He lived in an age when a 



accounted words to be but subservient or ministerial to matter, and not the 
principal. And if his style were polite, it was because he could not do 
otherwise. Neither was he given to any light conceits, or descanting upon 
words, but did ever purposely and industriously avoid them; for he held 
such things to be but digressions or diversions from the scope intended, 
and to derogate from the weight and dignity of the style, 
(a) See South's noble sermon on Human Perfection. 



CCCclxiv LIFE OF BACON. 

young mind would be dazzled, and a young heart engaged 
by the gorgeous and chivalric style which pervaded all 
things, and which a romantic queen loved and encouraged : 
life seemed a succession of splendid dramatic scenes, and 
the gravest business a well-acted court masque; the 
mercenary place-hunter knelt to beg a favour with the 
devoted air of a knight errant ; and even sober citizens put 
on a clumsy disguise of gallantry, and compared their 
royal mistress to Venus and Diana. There was nothing 
to revolt a young and ingenuous mind : the road to power 
was, no doubt, then as it is now, but, covered with tapestry 
and strewed with flowers, it could not be suspected that 
it was either dirty or crooked. He had also that common 
failing of genius and ardent youth, which led him to 
be confident of his strength rather than suspicious of his 
weakness: and it was his favourite doctrine, that the 
perfection of human conduct consists in the union of con- 
templation and action, a conjunction of the two highest 
planets, Saturn, the planet of rest and contemplation, and 
Jupiter, the planet of civil society and action; but he 
should have recollected that Jupiter dethroned Saturn, 
and that civil affairs seldom fail to usurp and take captive 
the whole man. He soon saw his error: how futile the 
end, how unworthy the means ! but he was fettered by 
narrow circumstances, and his endeavours to extricate 
himself were vain. 
Entrance Into active life he entered, and carried into it his 
life. powerful mind and the principles of his philosophy. As a 

philosopher he was sincere in his love of science, intrepid 
and indefatigable in the pursuit and improvement of it: 
his philosophy is " discover — improve. ''(a) He was 



(a) God hath framed the mind of man as a mirror, or glass, capable of 
the image of the universal world, and joyful to receive the impression 






REFORMER. CCCcLw 

patientissimus veri. He was a reformer not an innovator. 
His desire was to proceed not " in aliud" but " in melius." 
His motive was not the love of excelling, but the love of 
excellence. He stood on such a height that popular praise 
or dispraise could not reach him. 

He was a cautious reformer : quick to hear, slow to speak. His motive 
" Use Argus's hundred eyes before you raise one of 
Briareus's hundred hands/' was his maxim. 

He was a gradual reformer. He thought that reform 
ought to be, like the advances of nature, scarce discernible 
in its motion, but only visible in its issue. His admo- 
nition was, " Let a living spring constantly flow into the 
stagnant waters." 

He was a confident reformer. " I have held up a light Reformer, 
in the obscurity of philosophy, which will be seen centuries 
after I am dead. It will be seen amidst the erection of 
temples, tombs, palaces, theatres, bridges, making noble 
roads, cutting canals, granting multitude of charters and 
liberties for comfort of decayed companies and corporations ; 
the foundation of colleges and lectures for learning and 
the education of youth ; foundations and institutions of 
orders and fraternities for nobility, enterprize, and obe- 
dience ; but above all, the establishing good laws for the 
regulation of the kingdom and as an example to the 
world." 

He was & permanent reformer. — He knew that wise reform, Permanent 
instead of palliating a complaint, looks at the real cause 
of the malady. He concurred with his opponent, Sir 

thereof, as the eye joyeth to receive light; and not only delighted in 
beholding the variety of things and vicissitudes of times, but raised also to 
find out and discern the ordinances and decrees, which throughout all 
those changes are infallibly observed : for nothing is denied to man's 
inquiry and invention. The spirit of man is as the lamp of God, wherewith 
he searcheth the inwardness of all secrets. 

vol. xv. h h 



CCCclxvi LIFE OF BACON. 

Edward Coke, in saying, " Si quid moves a principio 
moveas. Errores ad principia referre est refellere." His 
opinion was that he, " who in the cure of politic or of 
natural disorders, shall rest himself contented with second 
causes, without setting forth in diligent travel to search 
for the original source of evil, doth resemble the slothful 
husbandman, who moweth down the heads of noisome 
weeds, when he should carefully pull up the roots; and 
the work shall ever be to do again." 

Cautious, gradual, permanent reform, from the love of 
excellence, is ever in the train of knowledge. They are 
the tests of a true reformer. 

Such were the principles which he carried into law and 
into politics. 
Lawyer. As a lawyer he looked with microscopic eye into its 
subtleties, and soon made great proficience in the science, (a) 
He was active in the discharge of his professional duties : 
and published various works upon different parts of the 
law. In his offices of Solicitor and Attorney General, 
" when he was called, as he was of the King's council 
learned, to charge any offenders, either in criminals or 
capitals, he was never of an insulting and domineering 
nature over them, but always tender-hearted, and carrying 
himself decently towards the parties, though it was his 
duty to charge them home, but yet as one that looked 



(a) When the celebrated lawyer, Mr. Hargrave, is speaking of the powers 
displayed by Lord Bacon, in his reading on the statute of Uses, he says, 
" It is a very profound treatise on the subject, as far as it goes, and shows 
that he had the clearest conception of one of the most abstruse parts of 
our law. What might we not have expected," he adds, " from the hands 
of such a master, if his vast mind had not so embraced within its compass 
the whole field of science, as very much to detach him from professional 
studies." — Such are the observations of Mr. Hargrave, an eminent lawyer, 
upon Lord Bacon's legal attainments. 



STATESMAN. CCCclxvii 

upon the example with the eye of severity, but upon the 
person with the eye of pity and compassion." (a) 

As a Judge, it has never been pretended that any decree Judge. 
made by him was ever reversed as unjust, (b) 

As a Patron of preferment his favourite maxim was Patron. 
" Detur digniori, qui beneficium digno dat omnes obligat." 

As a Statesman he was indefatigable in his public Statesman. 
exertions. " Men think," he said, " I cannot continue 
if I should thus oppress myself with business; but my 
account is made. The duties of life are more than life; 
and if I die now, I shall die before the world is weary of 
me, which in our times is somewhat rare." 

His love of reform, his master passion, manifested itself Reform as 
both as a statesman and as a lawyer; but, before he an( j lawyer, 
attempted any change he, with his usual caution, said, 
" There is a great difference between arts and civil 
affairs ; arts and sciences should be like mines, resounding 
on all sides with new works, and further progress : but 
it is not good to try experiments in states except the 
necessity be urgent or the utility evident; and well to 
beware that it is the reformation that draweth on the 
change and not the desire of change that pretendeth the 
reformation." 

The desire to change he always regarded with great 
jealousy. He knew that in its worst form it is the tool 
by which demagogues delude and mislead ; (c) and in 
its best form, when it originates in benevolence and a 
love of truth, it is a passion by which kind intention has 
rushed on with such fearless impetuosity, and wisdom 
been hurried into such lamentable excess : it is so nearly 
allied to a contempt of authority, and so frequently ac- 



(«) Rawley. (6) See Rushworth, vol. i. p. 28. 

(c) See note, next page. 



CCCclxviii LIFE OF BACON. 

companied by a presumptuous confidence in private 
judgment : a dislike of all established forms merely because 
they are established, and of the old paths merely because 
they are old : it has such a tendency to go too far rather 
than not far enough ; that this great man, conscious of the 
blessings of society and of the many perplexities which 
accompany even the most beneficial alterations, always 
looked with suspicion upon a love of change, whether it 
existed in himself or in others. In his advice to Sir 
George Villiers he said, — " Merit the admonition of the 
wisest of men : ' My son, fear God and the King, and 
meddle not with those who are given to change.' " 

(c) False patriotism, till it gain its end, 
Is as the true in many semblances. 
Like that it takes upon it to reform 
Oppressive judgments and injurious laws, 
That bear too hard upon the common weal : 
Cries out upon abuses, seems to weep 
Over the country's wrongs : and by this face 
Of seeming zeal and justice, craftily 
It wins those hearts for which its bait is thrown. 
But when its end is gained, 

? Tis flattering, cruel, 
Pompous and full of sound and stupid rage ; 
Of faith neglectful : heaping wrong on wrong : 
Ambitious, selfish : — while the true is calm, 
Firm, persevering, more in act than show. 

Deux citoiens haranguoient sur la place, 

Montes chacun sur un treteau : 

L'un vend force poisons, distilled dans une eau 
Limpide a 1'oeil ; mais il parle avec grace; 

Son habit est dor£, son equipage est beau ; 
II attroupe la populace. 
L'autre, ami des humains, jaloux de leur bonheur, 

Pour rien debite un antidote : 
Mais il est simple, brusque et mauvais orateur ; 

On s'en moque, on le fuit comme un fou qui radote, 
Et Ton court & Fempoisonneur. 



REFORM IN POLITICS. CCCclxix 

As a statesman his first wish was, in the true spirit of Reform as 
his philosophy, to preserve ; the next, to improve the consti- s a esman * 
tution in church and state. 

In his endeavours to improve England and Scotland 
he was indefatigable and successful. He had no sooner 
succeeded than he immediately raised his voice for op- 
pressed Ireland, with an earnestness which shows how 
deeply he felt for her sufferings. " Your majesty," he 
said, " accepted my poor field fruits touching the union, 
but let me assure you that England, Scotland, and Ireland 
well united, will be a trefoil worthy to be worn in your 
crown. She is blessed with all the dowries of nature and 
with a race of generous and noble people ; but the hand of 
man does not unite with the hand of nature. The harp 
of Ireland is not strung; to concord. It is not attuned 
with the harp of David in casting out the evil spirit of 
superstition, or the harp of Orpheus in casting out 
desolation and barbarism." 

In these reforms he acted with his usual caution. He 
looked about him to discover the straight and right way, 
and so to walk in it. He stood on such an eminence, 
that his eye rested not upon small parts, but compre- 
hended the whole. He stood on the ancient way. He saw 
this happy country, the mansion house of liberty. He 
saw the order and beauty of her sacred buildings, the 
learning and piety of her priests, the sweet repose and 
holy quiet of her decent sabbaths, and that best sacrifice 
of humble and simple devotion, more acceptable than the 
fire of the temple which went not out by day or by night. 
He saw it in the loveliness of his own beautiful description 
of the blessings of government. " In Orpheus's theatre 
all beasts and birds assembled, and forgetting their several 
appetites, some of prey, some of game, some of quarrel, 
stood all sociably together, listening to the airs and accords 



CCCCIXX LIFE OF BACON. 

of the harp, the sound whereof no sooner ceased, or was 
drowned by some louder noise, but every beast returned 
to his own nature ; wherein is aptly described the nature 
and condition of men : who are full of savage and unre- 
claimed desires of profit, of lust, of revenge, which as long 
as they give ear to precepts, to laws, to religion, sweetly 
touched with eloquence, and persuasion of books, of ser- 
mons, of harangues, so long is society and peace maintained; 
but if these instruments be silent, or sedition and tumult 
make them not audible, all things dissolve into anarchy 
and confusion." 

Reform of In gradual reform of the law, his exertions were inde- 
i 

fatigable. He suggested improvements both of the civil 

and criminal law : he proposed to reduce and compile the 
whole law; and in a tract upon universal justice, " Leges 
Legum," he planted a seed which, for the last two centuries, 
has not been dormant, and is now just appearing above 
the surface. He was thus attentive to the ultimate and 
to the immediate improvement of the law: the ultimate 
improvement depending upon the progress of knowledge. 
"Veritas temporis filia dicitur, non authoritatis:" the im- 
mediate improvement upon the knowledge by its professors 
in power, of the local law, the principles of legislation, and 
general science. 

So this must ever be. Knowledge cannot exist with- 
out the love of improvement. The French Chancellors, 
D'Aguesseau and L'Hopital, were unwearied in their exer- 
tions to improve the law ; and three works upon imaginary 
governments, the Utopia, the Atlantis, and the Armata, 
were written by English Chancellors. 
Sir Wm. So Sir William Grant, the reserved intellectual Master of 
the Rolls, struck at the root of sanguinary punishment, 
when, in the true spirit of philosophy, he said, " Crime is 
prevented not by fear, but by recoiling from the act with 



REFORM OF LAM r . CCCclxXl 

horror, which is generated by the union of law, morals, 
and religion. With us they do not unite; and our laws 
are a dead letter." (a) 

So too by the exertions of the philosophic and benevolent Sir S. 
Sir Samuel Romilly, who was animated by a spirit public mi y " 
as nature, and not terminated in any private design, the 
criminal law has been purified ; and, instead of monthly 
massacres of young men and women, we, in our noble 
times, have lately read that " there has not been one 
execution in London during the present shrievalty.' , — 
With what joy, with what grateful remembrance has this 
been read by the many friends of that illustrious statesman, 
who, regardless of the senseless yells by which he was 
vilified, went right onward in the improvement of law, the 
advancement of knowledge, and the diffusion of charity, (b) 

Such were Bacon's public exertions. — In private life he Private 
was always cheerful and often playful, according to his llfe * 
own favourite maxim, " To be free-minded and cheerfully 
disposed at hours of meat, and of sleep, and of exercise, is 
one of the best precepts of long lasting." (c) 

(o) I was in the house when the observation was pressedly made by Sir 
William. It apparently fell still-born. I said to a friend who was with 
me, " These punishments are at an end." 

(b) I never applied to him for an object in distress, but he thankfully 
opened his purse. 

Of the reforms by the Lord Chancellor Brougham, it is not the proper 
time, nor, perhaps, am I the proper person to form a correct judgment. 
This will be the subject of future consideration. 

(c) " His meals," says Dr. Rawley, " were refections of 
the ear as well as of the stomach, like the Noctes Atticae, or 
Convivia Deipno-Sophistarum ; wherein, a man might be 
refreshed in his mind and understanding no less than in 
his body. And I have known some, of no mean parts 
that have professed to make use of their note-books when 
they have risen from his table; in which conversations, 



CCCclxxii LIFE OF BACON. 

Conversa- The art of conversation, that social mode of diffusing 
tl0n ' kindness and knowledge, he considered to be one of the 

valuable arts of life, and all that he taught he skilfully 
and gracefully practised. When he spoke, the hearers 
only feared that he should be silent, yet he was more 
pleased to listen than to speak, " glad to light his torch 
at any man's candle." He was skilful in alluring his 
company to discourse upon subjects in which they were 

and otherwise, he was no dashing man, as some men are, 
but ever a countenancer and fosterer of another man's 
parts. Neither was he one that would appropriate the 
speech wholly to himself, or delight to outvie others, but 
leave a liberty to the co-assessors to take their turns; 
wherein he would draw a man on, and allure him to speak 
upon such a subject as wherein he was peculiarly skilful, 
and would delight to speak. And, for himself, he con- 
temned no man's observations, but would light his torch 
at every man's candle." 

Fuller, in his life of Lord Burleigh says, " No man was more pleasant 
and merry at meals; and he had a pretty wit-rack in himself to make the 
dumb to speak ; to draw speech out of the most sullen and silent guest at 
his table, to shew his disposition in any point he should propound. At 
night when he put off his gown he used to say, 'Lie there, Lord Treasurer/ 
and bidding adieu to all state affairs, disposed himself to his quiet rest." 

" And now the evening is come, no tradesman doth more carefully take 
in his wares, clear his shop-board and shut his windows, than I would 
shut up my thoughts and clear my mind. That student shall live mise- 
rably, which like a camel lies down under his burthen." — Bishop Hall. 

Plutarch tells us Democritus used to say, " That if the body and the 
soul were to sue one another for damages, it would be a doubtful question 
whether the landlord or the guest were most faulty." 

Plato's caution is very just, which is, " That we ought not to exercise 
the body without the soul, nor the soul without the body." 

Plutarch, in his book De Praeceptis Salubribus, which he wrote, as he 
declares himself, for the benefit of studious persons and politicians : " The 
ox said to his fellow servant the camel, which refused to bear part of his 
burden, ' In a little time it will be your turn to carry all my burden 
instead of a part. ' " 



PRIVATE LIFE* CCCcl 



XX111 



most conversant. He was ever happy to commend, and 
unwilling to censure; and when he could not assent to an 
opinion, he would set forth its ingenuity, and so grace and 
adorn it by his own luminous statement, that his opponent 
could not feel lowered by his defeat, (a) 

His wit was brilliant, and when it flashed upon any Wit. 
subject, it was never with ill-nature, which, like the crack- 
ling of thorns ending in sudden darkness, is only fit for a 
fool's laughter; (b) the sparkling of his wit was that of the 

Query, whether the reasons of this are not, 1st, that the mind requires 
rest; and 2ndly, that the spirit which produces thought is required for 
digestion and exercise. Ramazini, on the Diseases of learned Men, says, 
" For while the brain is employed in digesting what the desire of knowledge 
and the love of learning takes in, the stomach cannot but make an imperfect 
digestion of the aliment, because the animal spirits are diverted and taken 
up in the intellectual service; or these spirits are not conveyed to the 
stomach with a sufficient influx, upon the account of the strong application 
of the nervous fibres, and the whole nervous system, in profound study. 
How much the influx of the animal spirits contributes to the due perform- 
ance of all the natural functions of the viscera, is manifest from the decay 
of paralytic parts; for though these parts are supplied with vital juice by 
the perpetual afflux of the arterial blood, yet they dwindle and decay by 
being deprived of that nervous juice, or spirits, or whatever it is, which is 
conveyed to them through the nerves." 
(«) See note (c), ante, 471. 

(6) Ros. Oft have I heard of you, my lord Biron, 

Before I saw you : and the world's large tongue 

Proclaims you for a man replete with mocks ; 

Full of comparisons and wounding flouts ; 

Which you on all estates will execute, 

That lie within the mercy of your wit : 

To weed this wormwood from your fruitful brain ; 

And therewithal, to win me, if you please, 

(Without the which I am not to be won,) 

You shall this twelvemonth term from day to day 

Visit the speechless sick, and still converse 

With groaning wretches ; and your task shall be, 

With all the fierce endeavour of your wit, 

To enforce the pained impotent to smile. 



CCCclxxiv LIFE OF BACON. 

precious diamond, valuable for its worth and weight, de- 
noting the riches of the mine, (a) 

He had not any children; but, says Dr. Rawley, "the 
want of children did not detract from his good usage of 
his consort during the intermarriage, whom he prosecuted 
with much conjugal love and respect, with many rich gifts 
and endowments, besides a robe of honour which he in- 
vested her withal, which she wore until her dying day, 
being twenty years and more after his death." 

He was religious, and died in the faith established in 
the church of England, (b) 

Bacon has been accused of servility, of dissimulation, of 
various base motives, and their filthy brood of base actions, 
all unworthy of his high birth, and incompatible with his 
great wisdom, and the estimation in which he was held by 
the noblest spirits of the age. It is true that there were 
men in his own time, and will be men in all times, who 
are better pleased to count spots in the sun than to rejoice 
in its glorious brightness. Such men have openly libelled 
him, like Dewes and Weldon, whose falsehoods were de- 
tected as soon as uttered, or have fastened upon certain 
ceremonious compliments and dedications, the fashion of 
his day, as a sample of his servility, passing over his noble 
letters to the Queen, his lofty contempt for the Lord 
Keeper Puckering, his open dealing with Sir Robert Cecil, 

Biron. To move wild laughter in the throat of death? 
It cannot be ; it is impossible : 
Mirth cannot move a soul in agony. 

Ros. Why, that's the way to choke a gibing spirit, 
Whose influence is begot of that loose grace, 
Which shallow laughing hearers give to fools : 
A jest's prosperity lies in the ear 
Of him that hears it, never in the tongue 
Of him that makes it. 
(a) See ante, p. 28. (b) Rawley. 



PRIVATE LIFE. CCCclxXV 

and with others, who, powerful when he was nothing, 
might have blighted his opening fortunes for ever, for- 
getting his advocacy of the rights of the people in the face 
of the court, and the true and honest counsels, always 
given by him, in times of great difficulty, both to Elizabeth 
and her successor. When was a "base sycophant " loved 
and honoured by piety such as that of Herbert, Tennison, 
and Rawley, by noble spirits like Hobbes, Ben Jonson, 
and Selden, or followed to the grave, and beyond it, with 
devoted affection such as that of Sir Thomas Meautys. 

Forced by the narrowness of his fortune into business, 
conscious of his own powers, aware of the peculiar quality 
of his mind, and disliking his pursuits, his heart was 
often in his study, while he lent his person to the robes of 
office, (a) and he was culpably unmindful of the conduct of 
his servants, who amassed wealth meanly and rapaciously, 
while their careless master, himself always poor, with his 
thoughts on higher ventures, never stopped to inquire by 
what methods they grew rich. No man can act thus with 
impunity ; he has sullied the brightness of a name which 
ought never to have been heard without reverence, injured 
his own fame, and has been himself the victim upon the 
altar which he raised to true science; becoming a theme 
to " point a moral or adorn a tale," in an attempt to unite 
philosophy and politics, an idol, whose golden head and 
hands of base metal form a monster more hideous than the 
Dagon of the Philistines. 



(a) He says to Sir Thomas Bodley, " I do confess, since I was of any 
understanding my mind hath in effect been absent from that I have done, 
and in absence are many errors which I willingly acknowledge, and 
amongst the rest, this great one, which led the rest, that knowing myself by 
inward calling to be fitter to hold a book than to play a part, I have led 
my life in civil causes, for which I was not very fit by nature, and more 
unfit by pre-occupation of mind." 



CCCClxXVl LIFE OF BACON. 

His consciousness of the wanderings of his mind made 
him run into affairs with over-acted zeal and a variety of 
useless subtleties ; and in lending himself to matters im- 
measurably beneath him, he sometimes stooped too low. 
A man often receives an unfortunate bias from an unjust 
censure. Bacon, who was said by Elizabeth to be without 
knowledge of affairs, and by Cecil and Burleigh to be unfit 
for business, affected through the whole of his life an over- 
refinement in trifles and a political subtlety unworthy of 
so great a mind : it is also true that he sometimes seemed 
conscious of the pleasure of skill, and that he who possessed 
the dangerous power of " working and winding" others to 
his purpose, tried it upon the little men whom his heart 
disdained ; but that heart was neither " cloven nor double." 
There is no record that he abused the influence which he 
possessed over the minds of all men. He ever gave honest 
counsel to his capricious mistress, and her pedantic 
successor ; to the rash, turbulent Essex, and to the wily, 
avaricious Buckingham. There is nothing more lamentable 
in the annals of mankind than that false position, which 
placed one of the greatest minds England ever possessed 
at the mercy of a mean king and a base court favourite. 




INDEX TO THE LIFE. 



Abuses, considered in the Commons 

in various committees, 106. 
Address to the Lords by Bacon, 330, 

331,332. 
Advancement of Learning, Bacon's 
tract upon duty in, 60; division of 
the work, 125 ; passage from, on the 
pleasure of knowledge, 379 ; see 
Learning. 
Advantages, the several, of learning, 

130. 
Affirmative table, Bacon's mode in the 
search after truth, 285 ; Bacon's 
plan of discovering truth, 269. 
Alienation office, posthumous tract by 
Bacon upon, 43 ; valuable farm of, 
granted to Bacon, 258. 
Alexander, story of, illustrative of the 

paltriness of human affairs, 155. 
Ambition, Bacon and Burke's opinions 
upon the nature of, and high honours, 
195. 
Ambition, learning the destruction of, 
common, 201 ; the paltriness and 
selfishness of common, 201. 
Amendment of the law, Bacon's plan 

for, 27. 
Analysis, of the distempers of learn- 
ing, see note, 131 ; of history, see 
note, 133 ; of human philosophy, 
see note, 134. 
Ancients, Wisdom of, Bacon's publica- 
tion, a species of parabolical poetry, 
150 ; see Syren's extract from. 
Ancients, the high honours conferred 
upon the authors of inventors, by, 
note 193. 
Anecdotes of Bacon during the charge 

of bribery, 329. 
Anthony Bacon, King James's regard 

for, 109. 
Antipathy, medical, 275 ; of divines, 
275; of politicians, 275; of sailors, 
of lawyers, 275. 
Aphorisms, the favorite style of Bacon, 
see Novum Organum, and tract upon 
universal justice, 123. 
Apology, Bacon's, characters of the 
Queen and Essex as shown in, 45 ; 
republication of Essex's, and his 
trial for before the privy council, 66 ; 
Essex's, Bacon's witty conversation 
with Queen Elizabeth, showing her 



familiarity with the trial by torture, 
note (c), 175. 

Apothecaries and grocers' cause, answer 
to charge of receiving presents, 367 ; 
cause between, see Grocers. 

Aristotle, popularity of his philosophy 
at Cambridge, 7 ; Bacon's aversion 
to his philosophy, 8. 

Atlantis, see Bacon's magnificent plan 
of a college in, 13, 14, 15. 

Atterbury, see extract from, upon the 
contempt of censure in a judge, 247; 
see independent conduct of Judge 
Jenkins, 247. 

Attorney general, Bacon appointed, 
154 ; Bacon's letters to the King and 
Lord Salisbury respecting the ap- 
pointment of, see note {b), 154 ; 
Bacon's fitness for the office, 154 ; 
the eligibility of, to sit in parliament 
discussed, 158. 

Aubrey, answer to the charge in the 
case of, 364. 

Aubrey and Egerton charge Bacon 
with bribery, 313. 

Aubrey and Bronker, presents to Ba- 
con by Counsel in the cause of and 
decision against, 238 ; cause of, 
absurd charge of bribery against 
Bacon in, note (b), 238. 

Augmentis Scientiarum, Bacon's ob- 
servations upon cyphers in, 17. 

Autograph, Lord Bacon's, see note (c), 
21. 

Bacon, his tour to France and resi- 
dence in Poictiers, 17 ; his work 
upon cyphers, 17 ; his meditations 
upon the laws of sound and imagi- 
nation, see note 17; death of his 
father, and its influence upon his 
future life, 19 ; his aversion to the 
study of law, the only road with 
politics open to, 19; his letter to 
Lord Burleigh, praying his recom- 
mendation to the Queen, see note 

19 ; his letter to Lady Burleigh, 
praying her influence with Lord 
Burleigh to hasten his suit, see note 

20 ; his admission to Gray's Inn, 

21 ; his perseverance in and works 
upon the law, 21 ; his researches in 
science not diverted by his profes- 



ecccl 



xxvm 



INDEX TO THE LIFE. 



Bacon — 
sional duties, 22 ; his popularity at 
Gray's Inn, 23 ; his improvement 
of Gray's Inn gardens and build- 
ings, 23 ; his autograph there, 21 ; 
his promotion to the bench of Gray's 
Inn, 23 ; his letter to the Lord Trea- 
surer to be called to the bar, see note 
23 ; his union with the Leicester 
party, 25 ; his affection for Essex, 25 ; 
his application to Lord Burleigh for 
an appointment, with an eye to his 
favorite pursuits, 26 ; grant of a re- 
version to, by Burleigh's influence, 
26 ; his first speech upon the im- 
provement of the law, 27 ; his fa- 
vorite opinion of the duty of lawyers 
to strengthen and improve the law, 
27 ; his plan for a digest and amend- 
ment of the whole law, 27 ; his con- 
scientious speech upon the delay of 
the subsidies and the anger of the 
Queen, 27; Ben Jonson's opinion 
of the eloquence of, 28 ; his appli- 
cation to the Queen for the solicitor- 
ship, 28 ; Essex's intercession for 
with the Queen respecting the soli- 
citorship, 30 ; Lord Keeper Puck- 
ering's misrepresentations against, 
to the Queen, 30 ; his letter to the 
Queen for the solicitorship, accom- 
panied by a jewel according to cus- 
tom, 32 ; his intercession with the 
Queen upon her dissatisfaction with 
Essex during his absence in Ire- 
land, 49 ; his advice to Essex during 
his confinement, with respect to his 
management of the Queen, 53 ; his 
steady friendship to Essex, 59 ; his 
conference with the Queen, and ob- 
jections to the public proceeding 
against Essex, 56, 57 ; chosen coun- 
sel against Essex, upon the public 
proceedings in the Star Chamber, 
59 ; his relative duties to the Queen, 
to Essex, and to himself, upon her 
order as to his being counsel against 
Essex, 59, 60, 61 ; his admiration 
and friendship for Essex, 59 ; his 
motives for acceding to the Queen's 
order with respect to Essex, 64 ; his 
letter to the Queen upon the sub- 
ject, 64 ; his application to King 
James upon the death of the Queen, 
98 ; knighted by King James, his 
opinion of the honour, 99 ; Lady 
Bacon, first mention of, by, 102 ; his 
first session, elected for both St. 
Albans and Ipswich, 106 ; his exer- 



Bacon — 
tions, sat on twenty-nine commit- 
tees, 107 ; nominated by the House 
to attend privy counsels, upon the 
abuses complained of, and report 
thereon, 107 ; appointed a mediator 
between the Commons and Lords, 
107 ; address to the King not re- 
sented by him, 108 ; appointed 
King's counsel, with a pension, 108 ; 
his love of knowledge unchecked by 
politics, 109; his letter to Sir H. 
Saville upon education, 109; his 
tract upon the intellectual powers, 
111 ; his arrangement of knowledge 
respecting the body, 111 ; his work 
upon the greatness of Britain, 114 ; 
his legal and political exertions, 
119 ; his publication of the advance- 
ment of learning, 120 ; his aversion 
to method, 124 ; his low estimate of 
the study of words, 129 ; his ob- 
servations in his advancement upon 
the advantages of learning, and the 
distempers of learning, see analysis, 
note, 131 ; his essay upon govern- 
ment, extract from, 131 ; his inves- 
tigation of philosophy, (in the second 
book of his advancement), divine, 
natural, and human, 133 ; see ana- 
lyses of history and man, 133, 134; 
his beautiful and happy illustration 
of his subjects, 135 ; his exertions 
to improve the law, 138 ; his exer- 
tions to improve the condition of 
Ireland, and tract upon, 137, 138 ; 
his endeavours to promote the union 
with Scotland, and speeches upon, 
139, 140; his exertions to promote 
church reform. — See his tracts upon 
the subject, 141 ; appointed solici- 
tor-general upon Coke's promotion, 
1 42 ; his quarrel with Sir Edward 
Coke (nd) and letter of expostula- 
tion, 143 ; his reproof of Sir Edward 
Coke's cruel treatment of prisoners, 
145 ; his encouragement of merit 
upon his promotion to the solicitor- 
ship, 147 ; his improvement of the 
law, 147 ; see note C C at the end ; 
his perseverance in the Novum Or- 
ganum during his political and pro- 
fessional labours, 147 ; his compo- 
sition of detached parts of the No- 
vum Organum in his youth, 147; 
his publication of the wisdom of the 
ancients, 148; his appointment as 
judge of a new court to extend the 
jurisdiction of the Marshalsea, 151 ; 






TXDEX TO THE LIFE. 



ccccl 



XXIX 



Bacon — 

his protest against capital punish- 
ment, 151 ; his argument against 
the legality of the foundation of the 
Charter-house, 151 ; his publication 
of a new edition of the essays, 152 ; 
his prosecution of Lord Sanquhar 
on behalf of the Crown, and his 
great mildness, 153 ; his letter to 
Sir J. Constable, dedicating the es- 
says to him, see note, 153 ; his ap- 
pointment to the office of attorney- 
general, 154 ; his letter to Lord 
Salisbury and to the King, respect- 
ing the appointment, see note (6), 
154; his general, legal, and politi- 
cal knowledge and fitness for the 
office, 154 ; his political exertions, 
155 ; his great lenity as public pro- 
secutor, see note (b), 155; his opi- 
nions upon severe punishments, 156 ; 
his work for compiling and amend- 
ing the laws, 156 ; his advice to the 
King upon his unconstitutional ex- 
pedient to raise supplies, see his let- 
ter, note (c), 157 ; his tract upon 
duelling, see note (a), for the mis- 
chief, cause, and origin of, 159 ; his 
powerful speech upon the absurdity 
of the supposed confederacy to con- 
trol the House of Commons, see 
outline in note, 162 ; his speech 
against Mr. O. St. John, upon his 
trial for the publication of a letter 
reflecting upon the King's demand 
of presents, see outline in note, 165 ; 
his prosecution, as attorney-general, 
of Mr. Peacham, Mr. Owen, and 
Mr. Talbot, for high treason, 167, 
168 ; his letters to the King respect- 
ing Peacham's case, 169, 170 ; his 
private conference with Sir Edward 
Coke upon thelawof Peacham'scase, 
and removal of his scruples upon his 
objection, 171, 172 ; Judge Foster's 
hasty censure upon his conduct in 
Peacham'scase, 173; his vigorous 
advances, in the teeth of prejudice, 
in the advancement of knowledge, 
1 75 ; his real opinions as to Peacham's 
case, 1 75 ; his witty conversation with 
Queen Elizabeth concerning Essex's 
apology, showing her acquaintance 
with the torture, note(c), 175; his 
reprobation of the custom of impor- 
tuning the judges, 176 ; his letter to 
the King respecting Owen's case, 
176; letter to the King respecting 
his case, see note (a), 178 ; speech 



Bacon — 

against, for high treason, see note 
(b), 178 ; his speeches upon Owen 
and Talbot's trials for high treason, 
see notes (b) and (c), 178 ; Villiers's 
friendship for, 180 ; his letter to 
Villiers, with directions for the re- 
gulation of his conduct at court, 181 ; 
his speech upon the prosecution of 
Sir J. Hollis, Mr. Lumsden, and 
Sir J. Wentworth, respecting the 
Earl and Countess of Somerset's 
case, 184 ; his temperate speech 
upon the trial of the Earl and Coun- 
tess of Somerset for the murder of 
Sir Thomas Overbury, 185 ; his 
letter to Villiers respecting the dis- 
pute upon the jurisdiction of the 
Court of Chancery, 186; his letter 
to Villiers alluding to Chancellor 
Brachley's opinion of his powers, 
187 ; his letter to Villiers respecting 
a motion to swear him Privy Coun- 
cillor, 187; his appointment as Privy 
Councillor, 188 ; his prosecution of 
Mr. Markham in the Star Chamber 
for sending a challenge to Lord 
Darcy, 189; his appointment as 
Chancellor by the King with four 
admonitions, 189 his letter to Vil- 
liers upon his appointment as Chan- 
cellor, 190 ; his motives in accept- 
ing office, 191 ; his fitness for the 
office of Chancellor as a lawyer, a 
judge, a statesman, and patron, 197}; 
his essays upon the duties of a 
judge, 198 ; his letter to an old 
clergyman presenting him to a living, 
199 ; his conscientious appointment 
of judges, 200 ; anecdotes respecting 
his rejection of presents, note (&), 
205 ; presents to, from the suitors 
upon his being appointed Lord 
Keeper, 209 ; appointed head of the 
council about a week after his crea- 
tion as Lord Keeper, 211; his 
constant communication with Buck- 
ingham during the King's progress, 
213 ; his procession in state to 
Westminster as Lord Keeper, and 
address to the bar, 213, 214, 215, 
216 ; his contempt for the pomp of 
office, see letter to Buckingham, 
217 ; his opposition to Bucking- 
ham's marriage, and quarrel in con- 
sequence, 219 ; his reconciliation 
with Buckingham, 220 ; his attempt 
to retrench the royal expences, see 
letters to the King and Buckingham, 



cccclxxx 



INDEX TO THE LIFE. 



Bacon — 

221 ; his conscientious fulfilment of 
the office of Lord keeper in the 
staying of grants and patents, 222 ; 
appointed Lord High Chancellor 
and Barron of Verulam, 223 ; his 
just conduct with respect to the 
Dutch merchants, 225 ; his letter 
respecting the Dutch merchants, 
225 ; his letter to Buckingham re- 
specting the reform of the King's 
household, 231 ; his unprecedented 
exertions as Chancellor, 232 ; his 
warning to Buckingham upon his 
interference with causes, 233 ; his 
letter to the King respecting Ber- 
tram's murder of Sir J. Tindal,239 ; 
his letters to Buckingham, inter- 
ceding for Lord Clifton, note (■>•), 
241 ; his opinion upon the duty of 
a judge to resist bribery, 245 ; his 
structure of a house of retirement at 
Verulam, 257 ; his patent for con- 
verting Lincoln's Inn Fields into 
gardens, 257 ; his delight in the 
pleasures of nature, see his Essay 
on Gardens, 257 ; Alienation Office 
and York House granted to Bacon, 
258 ; his abandonment of the com- 
pletion of the Novum Organum 
according to his original design, 
260 ; his aversions to system, 270 ; 
created Viscount St. Alban, 303 ; 
contempt of the charges against 
him, see his speech in the com- 
mittee, note, 315 ; defended against 
the charge of bribery, 316 ; presides 
for the last time in the House of 
Lords, 320 ; his written address to, 
upon the charge of bribery, 320 ; 
his state of mind during the enqui- 
ries against him, various accounts, 
328 ; anecdotes of, during the 
enquiries against him, 329 ; his 
letters of complaint of the virulence 
of his enemies, 330, 331 ; his pre- 
parations for his defence, 333 ; his 
sentiments respecting the custom of 
receiving presents, 334; imagined 
defence of, 336 ; his interview with 
the King respecting the charge 
against him, 344. — See entry in the 
journals of the House of Lords, 246 ; 
his letter to the King, thanking him 
for his interview, note (a), 349 ; his 
letter of submission and supplication 
to the Lords (first submitted to the 
King and Buckingham, 349), 351 ; 
his defence against the several 
charges of bribery communicated to 



Bacon — 

him by the Lords, 359, et seq. ; his 
confession and humble submission 
to the Lords answering the charges 
against him, 359 ; the Lords' dis- 
satisfaction with, upon his letter of 
submission, and the particular 
charges against him sent to by, 354 ; 
deserts his defence after conference 
with the King, 372 ; grief at being 
compelled to desert his defence, 
372 ; his letter to the King, de- 
fending himself from the charge of 
bribery, 373 ; his love of knowledge 
the ruling passion, see note (fo), 
378 ; his letter to the Bishop of 
Winchester upon his retirement, 
380 ; sent to the Tower, 382 ; his 
letters from the Tower, 382; his 
liberation and retirement to Gor- 
hambury, 383. 

Bacon, Sir Nicholas, Bacon's father, 1. 

Baconiana, extract from, exposing the 
absurdity of the charges against 
Buckingham with respect to the 
Chancellor Egerton, and his sup- 
posed enmity to Bacon, note (b), 
209. 

Bar, Bacon's call to the, see letter in 
note (a) to the Lord Treasurer of 
Gray's Inn, 23 ; the duty of a judge 
to the, 254. 

Barker and Hill, present to Bacon in, 
after decree rebutting bribery, note 
(c) 339 ; refutation of charge in, 367. 

Barometer, Bacon's invention of a, 34. 

Beccaria, his opinions upon the trial 
by torture, see note, 164. 

Benevolences, parliament summoned 
to raise, in the King's distresses, 302. 

Ben Jonson, his opinion of Bacon's 
eloquence, 28, 199 ; Bacon's friend 
and translator of his essays, 39 ; 
a bricklayer, see anecdote of, note (e) 
257 ; his ode in honour of Bacon's 
birthday, 259. 

Bertram, his murder of Sir F. Tindal, 
a Master of the Court, see Bacon's 
account and letter to the King res- 
pecting, 239, see note, 240. 

Birth and parentage of Bacon, 1. 

Bodley, Sir T., his opinion of Bacon's 
views in his Cogitata et Visa, 148. 

Brackley, Lord Chancellor, death of, 
189; his opinion of Bacon's powers, 
see note (c), 187. 

Bribery, absurd charges of, against 
Bacon, in Fisher and Wraynham, 
Hody and Hody, Egerton and Eger- 
ton, Awbrey and Brenker, and the 



INDEX TO THE LIFE, 



ccccl 



XXXI 



Apothecaries and Grocers, see notes 
237, 238, 239 ; extract from Bacon, 
upon the duty of a judge to resist, 
245 ; charge of, against Bacon, by 
Aubrey and Egerton, 313 ; the ab- 
surd charges of, against Bacon, 337, 
338, et seq. ; charge of, against 
Bacon, more properly applied to 
his servants, 341 ; Bacon's defence 
against the several charges of, com- 
municated to him by the Lords, 359, 
et seq, 

Britain, Bacon's work upon the great- 
ness of, 114. 

Brown, the Scotch philosopher, his 
objections to Bacon's theory as to, 
and mode of, investigating, 298. 

Buckingham, see Villiers ; Bacon's 
letter to, interceding for Lord Clif- 
ton, see note (b) 241 ; William's 
persuasion of, to bear up against the 
popular clamour to crush Bacon, 
242 ; rapacious patents of, 306 ; 
alarmed at the outcries of the people, 
consults Williams, 310; delivers Ba- 
con'"s address to the House of Lords, 
332 ; his disquiets upon the popular 
discontent, 341 ; William's advice 
to, in his fears to brave the popular 
discontent, 342 ; his cowardly aban- 
donment of Bacon, 344 ; his denial 
of the charge of sending his brother 
out of the way to avoid the charge 
of bribery, 348. 

Burke, his opinion of the value of 
fame and honours, note (a) 195; 
his opinion of the propriety of a 
judge's being unconnected with po- 
litics, 243, see Hale's life, note, 244. 

Burleigh, Lord, Bacon nephew to, 25 ; 
Bacon's letter to, praying a recom- 
mendation to the Queen, 19 ; Ba- 
con's letter to Lady, praying her 
influence to hasten his suit, see note, 
20 ; his jealousy of Bacon's friend- 
ship for Essex, 26 ; letter of Bacon 
to, praying an appointment, with an 
eye to his favorite pursuits, 26 ; his 
gift of a valuable reversion to Bacon, 
26 ; his intercession with the Queen 
for Bacon's appointment as soli- 
citor, 30. 

Bushel, Bacon's amanuensis, see his 
mode of writing by dictation, 257 ; 
remarkable extract from, upon Ba- 
con being sacrificed by the King, 375. 

Cambridge, Bacon's admission to 
Trinity College, 5 ; Bacon's opi- 

VOL. XV. 



nion of, 5 ; Bacon's feelings upon 
approaching, 6 ; popularity of Aris- 
totle's philosophy at, in the time of 
Bacon, 8 ; Bacon's departure from, 
10; Bacon's endowment of two 
lectures to be delivered at, by a 
stranger, 13. 

Capital punishment. — See Punish- 
ment. 

Causes, real, in different apparent 
causes, 294. 

Caution, the property of a good judge, 
251. 

Cecil, Sir Bobert, Bacon's relationship 
to, 25 ; and Leicester party, divi- 
sion of the court into, 25 ; Bacon's 
accusation of, with respect to the 
solicitorship, 30 ; Bacon's honest 
retraction upon his accusation of, 
as to the solicitorship, 31. 

Chamberlain, his account of Peach- 
am's case, see note (&), 177. 

Chancellor, Bacon appointed, upon 
the death of Brackley, 189 ; Bacon's 
joy upon his appointment as, see 
letter to Villiers, 190 ; his motives 
for accepting the office of, 191 ; 
Bacon's fitness for the office of, as 
a lawyer, a judge, a statesman, and 
patron, 197 ; the salary of, in the 
age of Bacon composed partly of 
presents from the suitors, 202 ; pre- 
sents to the, common in the reign of 
Henry VI., note (a), 204; Bacon 
created Lord High, 1618, 222; 
Bacon's unprecedented exertions as, 
see letter to Buckingham, 232. 

Chancery. — See Court of. 

Chancery, court of, Bacon's proces- 
sion in state to take his seat in, and 
address to the bar, 213, 214, 215, 
216 ; Bacon's unprecedented exer- 
tions in, see letter to Buckingham, 
232 ; Bacon's improvement in the 
practice of, adopted at the present 
day, 243. 

Chances of an experiment of the divi- 
sions of the art of experimenting, 
265. 

Character of the Queen and of Essex, 
as shown in Bacon's Apology, 45. 

Charges raked up to the amount of 
twenty-three against Bacon, 330. 

Charity, the advancement of learning 
the most exalted, Bacon's favourite 
theory, 223. 

Charter House, Bacon's argument 
against the legality of the foundation 
of, 151. 



cccclxxxii 



INDEX TO THE LIFE. 



Church reform, Bacon's efforts to 
promote, 140 ; see his tracts, 
141. 

Church, Bacon's tracts upon the con- 
troversies of and the edification of, 
141. 

Civil list, Bacon's attempt to reduce 
the expenses of, 220. 

Clifton, Lord, his committal for threat- 
ening Bacon's life, 241 ; Bacon's 
intercession for, see his letters to 
Buckingham, note (6), 241. 

Cogitata et visa, a detached part of 
the Novum Organum, 148 ; Sir T. 
Bodley's opinion upon, 148. 

Coke, Sir Edward, Bacon's quarrel 
with, see note, 143 ; Bacon's letter 
to, upon the same subject, 143, 144 ; 
his unfairness to Bacon, 145 ; Ba- 
con's reproof to, 145 ; his bitter 
temper, and ill treatment of pri- 
soners, 145 ; see note (a), 155, and 
note (c), 156, viz. of Sir W. Ra- 
leigh and Mrs. Turner ; his distaste 
to philosophy, 147, see Novum Or- 
ganum ; Bacon's private conference 
with, by order of the King, upon 
the law of Peacham's case, 171 ; 
his objection to a private conference 
removed by Bacon, 172 ; his warmth 
and haughtiness upon the dispute 
between the Courts of King's Bench 
and Chancery, 186 ; King James's 
severe remarks upon, 186 ; his witty 
and high-minded remark upon the 
subject of church patronage, note, 
199 ; his disgrace by Buckingham, 
in consequence of refusing his alli- 
ance, 219; his application to be 
restored to favour, and agreement to 
Buckingham's marriage, 219. 

Coke, Sir Anthony, Bacon's father-in- 
law, 1. 

Coleridge, his opinions upon the tem- 
perament of genius, and its adap- 
tability for contemplation rather than 
action, note (b), 195. 

College, Trinity, Bacon's admission 
to, see Cambridge, 5 ; his magnifi- 
cent plan of a, 13, 14, 15. 

Colours of Good and Evil, Bacon's 
first work, published with the small 
12mo. edition of Essays and Sacred 
Meditations, 35. 

Committees to consider abuses, Bacon 
sat upon twenty-nine, 107 ; for the 
reform of abuses, 307. 

Compactness and union, a requisite 
to the greatness of a state, 116. 



Comparisons, table of, Bacon's mode 
of discovering truth, 287. 

Compton, answer to the charge in the 
case of, 364. 

Conduct of the understanding in the 
investigation of truth, 283. 

Conference, Bacon's, with King James 
respecting the charge against him, 
see extract from the journals of the 
house of lords, 346. 

Confession of Bacon to the lords, an- 
swering the charges against him, 
359. 

Constable, Sir J., Bacon's letter to, 
dedicating the Essays to him, see 
note, 153. 

Constituent instances, or separation of 
complex into simple in the search 
after a nature, 292. 

Contemplation and action, Bacon's 
favourite theory upon the wisdom 
of the union of, 61, 137. 

Contemplation, love of, extract from 
Seneca upon the advantages and 
comparative utility of, 193 ; the 
union of, with action incompatible 
with either the pursuits of the phi- 
losopher or politician, 194. 

Controversies of the church, Bacon's 
tract upon, 141. 

Copulation, of the divisions of the art 
of experimenting, 265. 

Counsel, the absurd identification of, 
with his client, 53 ; the duty of a 
judge to, 254. 

Court, the division of, during the reign 
of Elizabeth, into the Leicester and 
Cecil party, 25 ; its pedantry and 
contempt for literature, 25. 

Court of Chancery. — See Chancery. 

Court of King's Bench. — See King's 
Bench. 

Court of Chancery and Court of 
King's Bench, dispute between, 
respecting the jurisdiction of the 
former, 186. 

Courts of justice, the wise constitution 
of, 62. 

Credulity, hasty generalization the 
parent of, 273. 

Cromwell, his taunt of Sir M. Hale 
and his humble reply, 155. 

Crucial instances, 294. 

Custom, short extract from Bacon's 
essay upon, 36. 

Customs, the gradual change of, and 
the folly of, hasty censures of, acts 
in obedience to, 173, 174. 

Cyphers, Bacon's work upon, 17. 



INDEX TO THE LIFE. 



cccclxxxiii 



Danton, anecdote of, 329. 

Darcy, Lord, prosecution of Mr. 
Markham for sending a challenge 
to, 189. 

Death and Life, extract from Bacon's 
history of, see note (s), 17. 

Death of Bacon's father, the influence 
upon his future life, 19. 

Decision against donors, 316, 317. 

Defects of the senses, Novum Orga- 
num, see Seven Modes, 271, 

Defects of judgment, Novum Organum, 
272. 

Defence, of Bacon, 316; Bacon's 
preparations for, 333 ; Bacon's 
against the 21st charge, 334; Ba- 
con's against the several charges of 
bribery, 359, et seq. 

Delay of justice, extract from Bacon's 
address to the bar upon, 215. 

De FHdpital, the chancellor, custom 
of receiving presents from the suitors 
abolished by, in France, 206. 

Deliberation, the property of a good 
Judge, see anecdote of Eldon, note, 
251. 

Den, idols of, warping the judgment 
in the search after truth, 274. 

Denys de Cortes, anecdote of respect- 
ing his impartiality, 252. 

Dispatch, the errors of too great, 250. 

Deviating instances, or observations of 
nature deviating from her accus- 
tomed course in search after a na- 
ture, 294. 

Devonshire, Earl of, Bacon's letter to 
concerning his conduct to Essex 
upon his trial, see note, 72. 

Differences and resemblances, obser- 
vation of, in search after a cause, 295. 

Differences real in appparent resem- 
blances, observation of, in search 
after a cause, 296. 

Discovery of truth, the four requisites 
to the, 270. 

Distempers of learning, 130 ; see 131, 
for the analysis. 

Divines, objections of to learning, 127 ; 
antipathy of to innovation, 275. 

Division of the sciences, one of Ba- 
con's incomplete treatises, part of 
his intended great work, 267. 

Divorce, instances of, or observations 
of such natures separated as are 
generally united in the search after 
a nature, 294. 

Duelling, Bacon's tract upon, 159; 
mischief of, causes of origin, see 
note (a), 159. 



Dulwich college, Bacon's stay of the 
patent for, from the conviction that 
education was the best charity, 24. 

Dunch, answer to the charge of, 365. 

Dutch merchants. See Merchants. 

Duty, Bacon's tract upon, extract 
from, 60 ; Bacon's to the Queen, to 
Essex, and to himself, upon her 
choice of him as counsel against 
him, 59, 60, 61. 

Edification of the Church, Bacon's 
tract upon, 141. 

Education, Bacon's suggestion as to 
the collegiate, of statesmen, 11 ; the 
system of, in England, opposed 
to the advance of knowledge, 11 ; 
the evils of no system of political, 
see note (d), 11, 12 ; thoughts upon, 
in a letter to Sir H. Saville, from 
Bacon, 110 ; short extract from 
Bacon's essay upon, 150 ; Bacon's 
favorite opinion, the best charity, 
222. 

Egerton and Aubrey, charge Bacon 
with bribery, 313. 

Egerton and Egerton, presents to Ba- 
con by counsel in the cause of, and 
his decision against, 237 ; absurd 
charge of bribery against Bacon in, 
note (6), 237 ; Bacon's defence 
against the charge of bribery in, the 
money being received after the 
award, 359. 

Egerton, Lord Chancellor, the absur- 
dity of the charges against Bucking- 
ham with respect to, and his sup- 
posed enmity to Bacon exposed, 
note (b), 209. 

Election, extract from Paley upon the 
moral duty of impartial, note> 202. 

Elements of Law, Bacon's tract enti- 
tled, 35. 

Eloquence, Bacon's fitness for the 
office of chancellor, as a statesman, 
from his, 198. 

Equity and law, the nice distinctions 
between, attainable only by the 
highest powers of mind, 197. 

Error, causes of, in the investigation 
of truth, 281 ; the advancement of, 
knowledge the only effectual mode 
of decomposing, 175; the gradual 
emancipation from, 173, 174. 

Essays, small 12mo edition of, Bacon's 
first publication, 37 ; Bacon's upon 
great place, 119; popularity of, 
149 ; Bacon's new edition of 1612, 
152; different original and pirated 



ccccl 



XXXIV 



INDEX TO THE LIFE. 



editions of, 38, 41 ; translations of, 

39 ; spurious posthumous, 41 ; Du- 
gald Stewart's opinion of Bacon's, 

40 ; extracts from, 35, 38. 
Essex, Bacon's affection for, 25 ; cha- 
racter of, 25 ; bis earnest solicita- 
tion, for Bacon"s appointment as 
solicitor, with the Queen, 31 ; his 
letter to Lord Keeper Puckering, 
upon his opposition to Bacon res- 
pecting the solicitorship, 31 ; letter 
from, at Plymouth, to the Court, 
in behalf of Bacon, 36 ; cha- 
racter of, as shown in Bacon's apo- 
logy, 45 ; letter from, to Lady Hat- 
ton's friends in favour of Bacon's 
proposals of marriage, 42 ; his re- 
turn from Ireland, and the Queen's 
reception of him, 50 ; his confine- 
ment to his chamber by order of the 
Queen, 51 ; his committal to York 
House, 51 ; Bacon's advice to, in 
his confinement, 53 ; Bacon's steady 
friendship to, 51, 59 j private pro- 
ceedings against, by declaration in 
Star Chamber, 54 ; his removal to 
his own house in custody of Sir 
Richard Barkley, 55 ; public pro- 
ceedings against, see Star Chamber; 
Bacon chosen counsel against, 59 ; 
his trial before the privy council, 
upon the republication of his apo- 
logy, anno 1600, see note 4 C at the 
end, for a full account, 66 ; Bacon 
chosen counsel against and his secret 
friendliness to, 67, 68 ; his artful 
and submissive conduct upon his 
trial, 68 ; his sentence and impri- 
sonment in his own house, 69 ; the 
Queen's affections for, 70 ; the in- 
judicious conduct of his partizans 
respecting his creation of knights in 
Ireland, 75 ; his submissive reply to 
the Queen's letter upon the creation 
of knights in Ireland, 76; his par- 
tial liberation by the Queen's order, 
76 ; his entreaty to retire to Read- 
ing, 76 ; his submissive letters to 
the Queen, see notes, 77 , 78 ; his 
restoration to liberty by the Queen, 
with an order not to approach the 
court, 82 ; his fawning letter to the 
Queen for the renewal of the patent 
for sweet wines, 83 ; his violence 
and satirical remarks upon the 
Queen, in consequence of the re- 
fusal of his suit, 85 ; the Queen's 
total alienation from, in consequence, 
and displeasure with Bacon upon 



his attempt to reconcile her to, 85, 
86 ; his treasonable correspondence 
with Ireland, and conspiracy to 
seize the Queen, 87 ; his seizure of 
the Queen's deputation of the offi- 
cers of state, and open rebellion, 88 ; 
his seizure and committal to the 
Tower, 88 ; Bacon's alienation from, 
in consequence of his treachery to 
the Queen, 89 ; his trial with the Earl 
of Southamption, see note 4 E at the 
end, for an account of the trial, 90 ; 
his treachery to Bacon as to the 
letters composed for him to the 
Queen, 91 ; Bacon's attempts to 
obtain a remission of the sentence 
upon, 92 ; his execution, 92 ; the 
effect of his conduct upon the 
Queen, 94. 

Evidence, the modern law of, with 
respect to interest, illustrative of the 
injustice of hasty censure, 174. 

Examination of witnesses against Ba- 
con, 323. 

Exclusion of irrelevants in search after 
a nature, 290. 

Exclusions, table of Bacon's mode of 
discovering, 288. 

Experience, literate, Bacon's comple- 
tion of the tract upon, one of the 
divisions of the Art of Invention, 
261 ; production, inversion, trans- 
lation, variation, &c, divisions of 
the Art of Experimenting, 263,264, 
265. 

Extract of a letter from Digby to Fer- 
mat describing Bacon's indifference 
to the charge of bribery, 314 ; from 
Novum Organum, as to idols, 335 ; 
from Bacon, his simple and beau- 
tiful illustrations, 123. 

Extremes, observations of nature sought 
in, 293. 

Facts, consideration of, upon both 
sides, second division of Novum 
Organum, see affirmative and nega- 
tive table, 269 ; mode of presenting 
to the senses, third division of the 
Novum Organum, 270 ; the basis 
of sound reasoning, 283 ; collection 
of, the first step in the discovery of 
truth, 283 ; see affirmative and ne- 
gative table, 269. 

Fame, Burke's contempt for, the com- 
mon notion of, note (a), 195. 

Father, the high character of Bacon's, 
1 ; death of Bacon's, its influence 
upon his future life, 19. 



INDEX TO THE LIFE. 



cccclxxxv 



Filum Labyrinthi, see Novum Orga- 
num, Index. 

Fisher and Wrenham, Bacon's de- 
fence against the charge in, the 
money being received after the de- 
cree, 362. 

Formation of opinion, fact the ground- 
work of, 283. 

Foster, J. his hasty censure upon Ba- 
con's conduct respecting Peacham's 
case, 173; the justice of posterity 
to, as compared with his hasty cen- 
sure of Bacon, 173. 

France, Bacon's tour to, under the 
care of Sir Amias Paulet, 16 ; the 
custom of receiving presents from 
the suitors abolished by the Chan- 
cellor de l'Hopital in, 206 ; epices, 
the origin of presents to the judges 
in, 207 ; the custom of openly soli- 
citing the judges by the suitors, com- 
mon in, 209 ; custom of receiving 
presents by judges in, 318. 

Friendship of Bacon to Essex, 51, 59 ; 
Bacon's opinions upon, 88. 

Frontier instances, or observation of 
such as are composed of two species, 
293. 

Fuller, his opinion of the propriety of 
gravity in a judge, note, 144. 

Generalization, hasty, the parent 
of credulity, 273. 

Genius, Bacon's early indication of, 
3 ; the peculiar temperament of, un- 
fit for action, note (6), 195. 

Gibbon, his disappointment with Ox- 
ford, 7. 

Gold, exportation of, by the Dutch 
merchants, and Bacon's just con- 
duct respecting, 226. 

Gondomar, table of, upon the evils of 
retirement from active life, 122 ; his 
treaty of marriage with James, and 
Bacon's wise counsels against, 218 ; 
his character, 218. 

Government, the several requisites to, 
strength of, 119; the absurdity of 
supposing, dependent upon territory 
and riches alone, 115, 117 ; extract 
from Bacon's essay upon, 131. 

Gray's Inn, Bacon's admission to, 21 ; 
Bacon's popularity with the society 
of, 22 ; Bacon's improvement of, 
23 ; Bacon's promotion to the bench 
by the Society of, aet. 26, 23 ; Ba- 
con's letter to the Lord Treasurer 
of, to be called to the bar, see note 
(a), 23. 



Greatness, of Britain, Bacon's work 
upon, 114 ; of a state not dependent 
upon extent of territory or riches, 
115, 117 ; humility of true, see anec- 
dote of Napoleon, note (h), 201. 

Great place, extract from Bacon's es- 
say upon, 191. 

Great seals delivered to Williams, 
Hacket's account of, 376. 

Greece, custom of receiving presents 
in, by judges, 318. 

Grocers and apothecaries, presents by 
the parties according to custom to 
Bacon in a cause between, 238 ; 
absurd charge of bribery against Ba- 
con in a cause between, see note(c), 
238. 

Hacket, Bishop of Lichfield, Bacon's 
friend and translator of his essays, 
39 ; his Life of Williams, extract 
from, upon the abstruseness of the 
English law, and the nice distinc- 
tions between law and equity, 197 ; 
his account of the humility of Arch- 
bishop Williams when taking his 
seat as Lord Keeper, 213. 

Hale, Sir M., his humility and reply 
to Cromwell, 155 ; his studious con- 
cealment of his judicial opinions, 171, 
253 ; his condemnation of a mother 
and daughter for witchcraft as illus- 
trative of the gradual progress of 
truth, and defensive of Bacon 174 ; 
his avoidance of politics, 244 ; his 
regulation of his passions as a judge, 
245 ; his boldness as a judge, see his 
sentence upon a soldier, 248 ; his in- 
difference to censure, 248 ; his gene- 
rosity, note (c), 249 ; the propriety 
of his conduct to witnesses and pri- 
soners, 250 ; his amiable patience 
upon interruption, 254 ; his im- 
partiality to counsel, 253. 

Hansbye, answer to the charge partly 
admitting it, 364. 

Happiness resulting from learning, 130. 

Hardwicke, Lord Chancellor, see an- 
ecdote of his private justice in note 
(e), 249. 

Hatton, Lady, Bacon's proposal of 
marriage to, 42. — See note 3 N at 
the end; letter of Essex's to her 
friends respecting Bacon's proposals 
to, 42. 

Hargrave, his opinion of Bacon's legal 
powers, 44, 

Hawkins, Sir J., his remarks upon 
Bacon's musical knowledge, 44. 



icl 



CCCC1XXXV1 



INDEX TO THE LIFE. 



Henry VI., the custom of receiving- 
presents by the Chancellor in the 
reign of, note (a), 204. 

Henry VIII. , Sir Thomas Moore's re- 
fusal of presents in the reign of, 183. 

Herbert, Walton's Life of, giving an 
account of his devoutness and 
humility upon his induction, note, 
214. 

High Treason, Bacon's speeches 
against Owen and Talbot for, see 
note (6), #c, 178. 

History of Life and Death, Bacon's, 
see note Z, 17 ; Bacon's treatise 
upon, in the Advancement of Learn- 
ing, second book, see analysis in 
note, 133. 

History, Natural, Bacon's efforts to 
form a collection of, as a solid foun- 
dation for philosophy, 261 ; Bacon's 
observations upon music in his, 44. 

History, Natural and Experimental, 
the foundation of a sound philoso- 
phy, 261. 

Hobbs, his opinion of the propriety of 
a judge's contempt of worldly ad- 
vancement, note (/i), 246. 

Hody and Hody, presents to Bacon 
in the cause between, 239 ; absurd 
charge of bribery against Bacon re- 
specting, see note (a), 239 ; absurd 
charge against Bacon in the cause 
of, 338 ; Bacon's defence against 
the charge of bribery in the cause of, 
the gift being the reward, 360 ; 

Hollis, Sir J., Mr. Lumsden, and Sir 
J. Wentworth, Prosecution of, for 
certain reports respecting the sus- 
picions against the Earl and Coun- 
tess of Somerset, 184. 

Holman and Young, absurd charge 
against Bacon in the cause of, note 
(a), 337 ; Bacon's defence against 
the charge of bribery in, the money 
being received after the award, 361. 

Holt, C. J., his independent refusal in 
Rex v. Knollys, 247. 

House of Commons, Bacon's speeches 
in, upon the union, 140 ; Bacon's 
political exertions in, 155. 

House of Lords, Bacon's address to, 
320 ; Bacon's letter of submission 
and supplication to, upon the charge 
against him (first submitted to the 
King and Buckingham, 349), 351. 

Howard, Lord, Bacon's letter to, de- 
fending his conduct to Essex upon 
his trial before the Privy Council, 
72 j letter to Bacon in reply, 74. 



Hume, the unfair view taken by, and 
other historians, of Bacon's conduct 
to Essex upon his trial before the 
Privy Council, 69. 

Hunt, Bacon's servant, whom Bacon 
made return money received from a 
suitor, 366. 

Idols, destruction of, first division 
of Bacon's Novum Organum, 269 ; 
warping the mind, 272 ; of the 
tribe, of the market, of the den, of 
the theatre warping the mind in the 
search after truth, 273, 274, 275, 
276. 

Imagination, see disquisition upon the 
laws of, note (&), 4 ; extract from 
Bacon's sylva upon the laws of, 
note, 18. 

Imagined defence of Bacon, 336. 

Immortality of knowledge and learning, 
129. 

Importuning the judges reprobated by 
Bacon, 176. 

Imprisonment of Bacon, 382. 

Infancy of Bacon of great promise, 17. 

Informers, notorious, employed against 
Bacon, 324. 

Innovations, Bacon's opinion thereon, 
105. 

Instances crucial, 204; solitary, or 
consideration of such as are so in 
resemblance or difference in the 
search after a nature, 290 ; preroga- 
tive, by which natures sought may 
be most easily discovered, 290 ; 
travelling, or observation of a nature 
approaching or receding from ex- 
istence, 291 ; journeying, or obser- 
vations of the changes of a nature, 
291 ; constituent, or separation of 
complex into simple in the search 
after a nature, 292 ; patent and 
latent, observation of extremes in 
the search after a nature, 292 ; 
frontier, or observation of such as 
are composed of two species in the 
search after a nature, 293 ; singular, 
or observation of such as are pecu- 
liar amidst their own natures in the 
search after a nature, 293 ; devi- 
ating, or observation of nature de- 
viating from her accustomed course 
in search after a nature, 294 ; of 
divorce, or observation of such na- 
tures separated as are generally 
united in the search after a nature, 
294. 

Inventions, the universal benefit of, 



INDEX TO THE LIFE. 



ccccl 



XXXV11 



and the high honours conferred upon 
the authors of, by the ancients, 
note, 193 ; Bacon's division of, into 
literate experience, and Interpretatio 
Naturae, or Novum Organum, in the 
Advancement of Learning, 261 ; the 
principle of Bacon's art of, 284. 

Inversion, of the divisions of the art 
of experimenting, 263 ; 

Ireland, disturbances in, 44 ; Essex 
appointed Lord Lieutenant of, 48 ; 
Bacon's dissuasion of Essex's ac- 
ceptance of the Lord Lieutenancy of, 
47 ; Essex's administration in, — dis- 
satisfaction of the queen with, 49 ; 
Essex's return from, 51 ; private 
proceedings against Essex respect- 
ing, see Star Chamber, 53 ; the 
creation of Knights in, by Essex, 
and the unwise conduct of his par- 
tizans, 75 ; letter of the Queen, re- 
specting, to Essex, 76 ; Bacon's 
political labours to improve the 
condition of, 137 ; Bacon's tract 
upon the miseries of, and mode of 
prevention, 139. 

Irrelevants, exclusion of, in the search 
after a nature, 290. 

Isle of Man, singular oath by the 
judges in, note, 252. 

Jenkins, Judge, independent conduct 
of, 247. 

Journals of the Commons, Bacon's 
speeches in, upon the Union, 140. 

Journeying instances, or observations 
of the charges of a nature, 291. 

Judge, Bacon's qualifications as a, for 
the Chancellorship, from his fre- 
quent meditations and publications 
upon his duties, see note (6), 198 ; 
Bacon's sacrifice as, to the feelings 
of the politician, 223 ; the character 
of, irreconcileable with the politi- 
cian, 225 ; character of the good, 
243, et seq. ; gravity becoming in, 
see note, Fuller, 243 ; dabbling in 
politics reprehensible in, 243 ; Bar- 
row's opinion as to the requisites to 
form a good, 244 ; the necessity of 
his emancipating himself from all 
passion, see note (g), Sir M. Hale, 
see note (h), 245, Paley, note Qi) 
246, Hobbs, note (i) 247 ; his 
proper indifference to censure, see 
note (i) Atterbury, 247 ; his pri- 
vate duties, see anecdotes of Hale 
and Hardwicke, note (J), 249 ; the 



proper motives of, in the acceptance 
of office, see Barrow and Tulley, 
note, 249 ; patience the property 
of a good, 250; deliberation and. 
caution the properties of a good, 
251, see anecdote of Eldon, note; 
the errors of too great dispatch in, 
250; the impartiality of the good, 
see anecdote of Denys de Cortes and 
singular oath in the Isle of Man, 
252 ; his duties to the witnesses, 
the jurors, the advocates, 253, 254, 
255 ; his duty to himself, to his 
profession, to society, 255 ; his duty 
to resign, 256, see Hale's life, note 
(r) ; upon the bench compared to 
philosopher in his study, 269. 

Judges, Bacon's advice to Villiers 
upon the choice of good, note (6), 
198 ; Bacon's high conduct as a 
patron in the appointment of, 200 ; 
the custom of giving presents to, by 
the suitors, common in the age of 
Bacon and his predecessors, 203 ; 
the custom of bestowing presents 
upon, by the suitors, common in 
all nations approaching civilization, 
206 ; origin of the custom of pre- 
sents to, in France, 207 ; the cus- 
tom of influencing, see by univer- 
sities and Buckingham, 233 ; the 
custom of openly soliciting, by the 
suitors, common in France, 209 ; 
Bacon's address to, upon their se- 
veral duties, 243 ; appointment of, 
Bacon's speeches to, upon the, 243 ; 
see also Judge. 

Judgment, defects of Novum Orga- 
num, 272. 

Justice, courts of, the wise constitu- 
tion of, 62 ; speedy, extract from 
Bacon's address to the bar upon the 
virtue of, 215. 

Jupiter, Bacon's illustration by, and 
Saturn, of the union of contempla- 
tion and action, 137 ; and Saturn, see 
Saturn. 

Judicial exertions, Bacon's, 229. 

Judicature, extract from Bacon's essay 
upon, 216. 

Kenelm Digby's powder of sym- 
pathy, note (a), 283. 

Kennedy and Vanlore, Bacon's com- 
plete refutation of the charge of 
bribery in, 362. 

King James appoints Bacon his coun- 
sel, with a small pension, 108 ; Ba- 



cccclxxxviii index to the life. 



con's letter to, respecting his ap- 
pointment as attorney -general, see 
note (b), 154 ; Bacon's advice to, 
upon his unconstitutional expedient 
to raise supplies, see letter of Bacon 
to, note (c), 157 ; his inability to 
allay the rumours and to procure 
supplies and dissolution of parlia- 
ment in consequence, 163 ; presents 
to, in his distresses, 163 ; letters by 
order of, to the sheriffs and justices, 
enjoining presents to, and impeach- 
ment of Mr. Oliver St. John upon 
his opposition to, as illegal, 163; 
letters of Bacon to, respecting Pea- 
cham's case, 169, 170; Bacon's 
letter to, respecting Owen's case, 
note (a), 178; his admiration of 
Villiers, and successive honours 
conferred upon by, 179 ; his grow- 
ing distaste to Somerset, 179 ; his 
judgment in the question upon the 
jurisdiction of the Court of Chan- 
cery, and severe remarks upon Coke, 
186; his journey to Scotland, see 
note (b), 211 ; his pleasure in light 
amusements, 211 ; his attachment 
to the society of Buckingham, 212 ; 
his pecuniary distresses, 221 ; his 
lavish bounty upon Buckingham, 
222 ; his treaty of marriage with 
the wily Gondomar, and Bacon's 
wise counsel to, 218 ; his admi- 
ration of Bacon's wisdom, 218 ; 
Bacon's letter to, upon his at- 
tempted retrenchment of the royal 
expenses, note (p),220 ; his distresses 
and partiality to his countrymen, 
see note (6), 225 ; Bacon's letter to, 
respecting Bertram's murder of Sir 
J. Tindal, note (b), 239 ; Williams's 
subtle advice to, not to dissolve the 
parliament to crush Bacon, 242 ; 
consults with Williams, 312 ; his 
speech upon the dismissal of parlia- 
ment, March 26, 326 ; his speech 
praising Buckingham, note A, 327 ; 
Bacon's letter to, entrusted to Buck- 
ingham, 331 ; his disquiet upon the 
popular discontents, 341 ; Wil- 
liams's subtle advice to, to brave 
the popular discontent, 342 ; his 
cowardly abandonment of Bacon, 
344 ; his consultation with the lords 
upon the course to be pursued by 
Bacon upon the charge against him, 
346; his assurance to save Bacon, 
upon his agreeing to submit to the 
House of Peers, 348 ; his speech to 



the parliament protests readiness to 
enquire into abuses, 350 ; letter to, 
from Bacon, desiring the cup might 
pass from him, note B, 370. 

King's Bench, Court of, and Court of 
Chancery, dispute between respect- 
ing the jurisdiction of the latter, 186. 

Knighthood, the title of, sold for the 
King's profit, 101. 

Knowledge, Bacon's test of the mo- 
tives for the acquisition of, 8 ; res- 
pecting the body forming no part of 
public education, 112; respecting 
the mind, arranged by Bacon, 112 ; 
power of, to repress the inconve- 
niencies which arise from man to 
man, 131 ; immortality of, 131 ; the 
effect of its progress in the last two 
centuries upon civil and religious 
liberty, 172 ; an evil attendant upon 
the rapid progress of, pointed out by 
Bacon, 173 ; the advancement of, 
the only effectual mode of decom- 
posing error, 175 ; desire of wealth 
an interruption to the progress of, 
192 ; worldly power contemptible as 
compared to the pursuits of philo- 
sophy, 193 ; the search after, more 
laudable than the projects of ambi- 
tion, note, 194 ; obstacles to the 
acquisition of, 278 ; why progres- 
sive, 287. 

Lambeth Library, extract from, MS. 
of Bacon's in Greek characters, 
374. 

Latent and patent instances, or obser- 
vation of extremes, in the search 
after a nature, 292. 

Law, the study of, repulsive to Bacon's 
imaginative mind, 19 ; and politics 
the only roads open to Bacon, 19 ; 
the high attainment of Bacon's 
family in, 19 ; Bacon's perseve- 
rance in, 21 ; an accessory not 
a principal study to Bacon, 22 ; 
Bacon's various works upon the, 21, 
Bacon's exertions in, with the ulti- 
mate hope of literary ease, 25, 26 ; 
Bacon's speech upon the improve- 
ment of the, 1592, 27 ; Bacon's 
plan for a digest and amendment of 
the, 27 ; Bacon's favorite opinion of 
the debt due from the members of 
the profession to the improvement 
of the, 27 ; Bacon's efforts towards 
the improvement of the, 138, 147, see 
C C at the end ; Bacon's tract upon 
the amendment of the, 156 ; Bacon's 



INDEX TO THE LIFE. 



cccclxxxix 



attention to, a compensation for his 
comparative neglect of science, 196 ; 
an academical education not a pass- 
port to the intricacies and subtleties 
of, 196 ; the nice distinctions be- 
tween, and equity attainable only by 
the highest powers of mind, 197 ; 
expenses, Bacon's address upon 
his determination to dimiuish, 216 ; 
Bacon's exertions in the profession 
of, see letter to Buckingham, 232 ; 
reporters, Bacon's proposal for the 
appointment of, 242. 
Laws, the gradual change of, the effect 
of the progress of knowledge, 172 ; 
the folly of hasty censures upon the 
obedience to existing, 173. 
Lawyer, Bacon's fitness as a, for the 
office of Chancellor, from his ex- 
perience and publications upon the 
subject of law, 197. 
Lawyers, antipathy of, to innovation, 
275 ; see Tenterden, 276 ; Bacon's 
opinion of the debt due to their pro- 
fession, 27 ; their tendency to resist 
legal improvement, 27. 
Learning, Advancement of, see Ad- 
vancement of Learning ; of Bacon's 
mother, 2 ; Advancement of, Ba- 
con's work on, 1605, 120 ; objec- 
tions of divines and politicians to, 
127 ; objections to, from the errors 
of learned men, 127 ; Advancement 
of, first book, observations in, upon 
the advantages and distempers of 
learning, 130 ; see analysis in 
note, 131 ; Advancement of, Ba- 
con's second book, observations in, 
upon the defects of universities, 
133, 278 ; Advancement of, second 
book, Bacon's investigation in, of 
philosophy, natural, human, divine, 
133; see analysis of history and 
man, 133, 134; Advancement 
of, beautiful illustration and ima- 
gery of, 135; Advancement of, 
Bacon's second book, treatise upon 
history in, see analysis in note, 133 ; 
Advancement of, Bacon's different 
editions and particulars, see note 
A A A, at the end, translations of, 
136 ; Advancement of, extract from, 
upon the opinion of the ancients as 
to the benefit of inventions to man- 
kind, note, 193 ; Advancement of, 
Bacon's opinions upon the various 
duties of a patron in, 199 ; condu- 
cive to a proper estimate of our 
value in the scale of existence and 



to noble motives of action, 201 ; 
the death-blow to common ambition, 
201 ; advancement of, the best cha- 
rity, Bacon's favorite theory, 223 ; 
Bacon's preliminary view of the 
barren state of, in the Novum Or- 
ganum, 266 ; Bacon's division of 
his intended work, 267 ; Advance- 
ment of, extract from, upon the im- 
perfect means for experiment in the 
universities, 278 ; Advancement of, 
Bacon's opinions in, upon the pro- 
gressiveness of knowledge, 281. 

Lectures, Bacon's endowment of two, 
at Cambridge, to be delivered by a 
stranger, 13. 

Leicester, and Cecil party, division of 
the Court into, 25 ; Bacon's union 
with the, party, 26. 

Lentall, Bacon's defence against the 
charge in, the gift being received af- 
ter the decree, 363. 

Letter of Bacon to Lord Burleigh, 
praying a recommendation to the 
Queen, see note (d), 19 ; of Bacon 
to Lady Burleigh, praying her in- 
fluence to hasten his suit, see note, 
20 ; of Bacon to Burleigh, for an 
appointment, with an eye to his 
favorite pursuits, 26 ; of Bacon to 
the Queen, praying the solicitorship, 
accompanied by a jewel according 
to custom, 32 ; of Essex to the 
Lord Keeper Puckering, in behalf 
of Bacon, respecting the solicitor- 
ship, see note, 31 ; of Bacon to the 
Queen, upon his disappointment 
with respect to the solicitorship, 34 ; 
of Essex, at Plymouth, to the Court, 
in behalf of Bacon, 37, see note 3 A 
at the end ; of Essex to Lady Hat- 
ton's friends, in favour of Bacon's 
proposals of marriage, 42, see note 
3 R at the end ; of Bacon to the 
Queen, respecting her choice of him 
as counsel against Essex, 64 ; of 
Bacon to Lord Howard, respecting 
his conduct to Essex upon his trial, 
72 ; of Lord Howard in reply to 
Bacon, 74 ; of Bacon to Sir R. 
Cecil, upon the same subject, see 
note (x), 73 ; of Bacon to the Earl 
of Devonshire, upon the same sub- 
ject, see note (a), 72 ; of the Queen 
to Essex, demanding a former letter 
respecting Ireland, see note, 16 ; of 
Essex to the Queen, praying to be 
restored to favour, see note, 77, 78 ; 
of Essex, extract from, upon the 



ccccxc 



INDEX TO THE LIFE. 



same subject, 76 ; of Bacon, for 
Essex, to the Queen, see note (a), 
77 ; of Bacon, as from Anthony 
Bacon, to Essex, and the reply to 
be shown to the Queen, 79, see note 
4 E at the end ; of Essex, to the 
Queen, for a renewal of the patent 
for sweet wines, 83 ; of Bacon to 
the King, upon his accession, 99 ; 
to the Earl of Northumberland, to 
second Bacon's application to the 
King, 99; to Sir H. Saville, upon 
education, 109 ; of Bacon to Sir 
Edward Coke, upon his unworthy 
conduct to him in the Exchequer, 
143, 144; of Bacon, to Sir J. Con- 
stable, dedicating the essay to him, 
see note, 153 ; Bacon's, to King 
James, respecting his appointment 
as attorney general, see note (&), 154; 
of Bacon to the King, upon his un- 
constitutional expedient to raise sup- 
plies, see his letter, note (c), 157 ; 
of Bacon to the King, respecting 
Owen's case, 176, see note (a), 
178 ; of Bacon, to Villiers, upon 
the regulation of his conduct at 
Court, being an essay on various 
subjects, 181 ; of Bacon to Vil- 
liers, upon his appointment to the 
chancellorship, 190 ; of Villiers to 
Bacon, upon the regulation of his 
conduct, note (a), 180; of Bacon 
to Villiers, upon the dispute between 
the Courts of King's Bench and 
Chancery, 186; of Bacon to Vil- 
liers, containing Chancellor Brack- 
ley's opinion of him, 187 ; of Bacon 
to Villiers, respecting a motion to 
swear him privy councillor, 188 ; of 
Bacon to an old clergyman, pre- 
senting him to a living, 199 ; of 
Bacon to Buckingham, upon his 
taking his seat as Lord Keeper, 
showing his contempt for the pomp 
of office, 217 ; of Bacon to the 
King and Buckingham, upon the 
subject of retrenching the royal 
expenses, &c, 220 ; of Bucking- 
ham to Bacon, upon his stay of the 
patents, note (b), 222 ; of Bacon to 
Buckingham, showing his sacrifice 
as a judge to his political feelings, 
223 ; of Bacon to Buckingham, 
upon Suffolk's case, note, 224 ; of 
Bacon, respecting the Dutch mer- 
chants, 225; first and second, of Sir 
H. Mountagu to Buckingham, ne- 
gotiating for the lord treasurership, 



227, 229 ; of Sir H. Mountagu to 
Sir Edward Villiers, respecting the 
treasurership, 229 ; of Sir H.Villiers, 
to Buckingham, respecting Sir H. 
Mountagu's offer for the treasurer- 
ship, 229; of Bacon, to Bucking- 
ham, upon the reform of the King's 
household, 231 ; of Bacon, to the 
King, respecting Bertram's murder 
of Sir J. Tindal, 239 ; from Digby 
to Fermat, describing Bacon's in- 
difference to the charges against 
him, 314 ; to the King, from Bacon, 
desiring the cup may pass from him, 
370, note B ; to Buckingham, after 
his fall relying upon his friendship, 
380 ; to Bishop of Winchester from 
Bacon, 380 ; first and second, of 
Bacon to Buckingham, interceding 
for Lord Clifton, see note, 241. 

Letters of Bacon, complaining of the 
virulence of his enemies, 330, 331 ; 
to the King, entrusted to Bucking- 
ham, 331 ; from Bacon, in great 
agony, from the Tower, to Buck- 
ingham, 373 ; of Bacon from the 
Tower, 382. 

Levity, reprehensible, in a judge, note 
Fuller, 144. 

Liberation of Bacon from theTower,383. 

Libraries, Bacon's praise of, and of 
public institutions in general, 7. 

Lieutenancy, lord, Essex's solicitation 
of, 45 ; Bacon's dissuasion of Es- 
sex's acceptance of, 47 ; Essex 
appointment to, 48. 

Life, dangers of retirement from active, 
see Table of Gondomar, 122. 

Life and Death, extract from Bacon's 
History of, see note (z), 17. 

Literate experience, see Experience. 

Literature, the contempt of the Court 
for, in the time of Bacon, during 
Burleigh's ascendancy, 25 ; ancient, 
the beneficial effects of the study of, 
upon the mind and character, 129. 

Locke, extract from, upon the warps 
of the understanding, note (a), 272. 

Lodgings, Lord Bacon's, an elegant 
structure built by Bacon, 23. 

Lord Keeper, presents to Bacon from 
the suitors upon his appointment as, 
209 ; Bacon's procession in state 
to take his seat as, and address to 
the Bar, 213, 214, 215, 216 ; Hac- 
ket's account of Archbishop Wil- 
liam's humility when taking his seat 
as, 213. 

Lord Treasurer, of Gray's Inn, Ba- 



INDEX TO THE LIFE. 



CCCCXC1 



con's letter to, to be called to the 
Bar, see note (a), 23. 

Lords, dissatisfaction of, upon Bacon's 
letter of submission, 354 ; the par- 
ticular charges against Bacon sent to 
him by, and answers ordered, nnte(a), 
355 ; Bacon's confession and hum- 
ble submission to, answering the 
charges against him, 359 ; pass sen- 
tence upon Bacon, 372. 

Lumsden, Mr., trial of, see Hollis, 
Sir J. 

Maddox's account of presents to 
judges in the reign of King John, 
318. 

Manchester, Earl of, his observations 
to Bacon after his fall, 329. 

Markham, Mr., Bacon's prosecution 
of, in the Star Chamber, for sending 
a challenge to Lord Darcy, 189. 

Market, idols of, warping the mind in 
the search after truth, 274. 

Marriage, Bacon's unsuccessful pro- 
posals of, to Lady Hatton, 42, see 
note 3 N at the end ; letter from 
Essex to Lady Hatton's friends, in 
favour of Bacon's proposals of, 42, 
see note 3 N at the end ; King James 
treaty of, with the wily Gondomar, 
and Bacon's wise counsels against, 
218 ; of Buckingham with the 
daughter of Sir Edward Coke, 219. 

Martial valour, see valour. 

Maxima et minima, or extremes in 
nature sought, 293. 

Minima et maxima, or extremes in 
nature sought, 293. 

Meautys, Sir Thomas, his speech to 
the House in favor of Bacon, see 
note B, 325. 

Medical antipathy, see Hunter, note 
(a) 275. 

Meditationes sacrae, first published 
with the small 12mo. edition of es- 
says, 35 ; partly incorporated into 
the subsequent editions of the essays 
and theAdvancementof Learning, 41 . 

Merchants, Dutch, Bacon's just con- 
duct upon the writs issued against, 
for exporting gold, 226. 

Method, Bacon's aversion to, 124. 

Minute philosopher, see Philosopher. 

Michell and Mompesson, impeach- 
ment of, 308. 

Moderns, their superior advantages in 
the discovery of truth, 136. 

Mompesson, Sir Giles, and Michell, 
303 ; judgment against, 326. 



Monk, Bacon's defence against the 
charge of bribery in, the money 
being received after the decree, 
361. 

Mountague, answer to the charge of, 
364. 

Montesquieu, extract from, upon the 
origin of the custom of presents to 
the judges in France, 207. 

More, Sir Thomas, anecdote of, by 
Bacon, upon his inflexibility to 
bribery, 205 ; refusal of presents, 
318. 

Mother, the great learning of Bacon's, 
see note (a) 2. 

Motives in the search after truth, 277. 

Music, Bacon's acquaintance with the 
principles of, 44. 

Napoleon, anecdote of, illustrating 
the humility of true greatness, note 
(6), 201. 

Narrative, Bacon's, of the proceedings 
against Essex before the Privy 
Council, 71. 

Natural History, Bacon's observations 
upon music in his, 44. 

Nature, Bacon's early enquiries into 
the laws of, 9. 

Nature of the work, [see note (a), ar- 
rangement, 121], 120; style of, 
121. 

Nature in motion, observation of, in 
search after a cause, 290. 

Negative table, Bacon's plan of dis- 
covering truth, 269 ; Bacon's mode 
in the search after truth, 286. 

New Atlantis, extract from, upon the 
comparative merits of the statesman, 
hero, and philosopher, engaged in 
the impartial investigation of truth, 
note, 193, 194. 

Novum Organum, Bacon's early de- 
sign of, 9 ; Bacon's doctrine in, 
upon the discovery of truth, 62 ; 
Bacon's perseverance in, during his 
political and professional duties, 
148 ; Temporis partus maximus — 
Filum Labyrinthi — Cogitata et visa 
— detached parts of, collected and 
arranged by Bacon when a youth, 
148 ; Sir Edward Coke's comment 
upon, 147 ; Bacon's abandonment 
of the completion of, according to 
his original design, 260 ; impressive 
opening of, 265 ; outline of Bacon's 
intended great work in, (see Divi- 
sion, 267), 266 ; preliminary review 
in, of the barren state of learning, 



CCCCXC11 



INDEX TO THE LIFE. 



266 ; a treatise upon the conduct of 
the understanding in the discovery 
of truth, the second part of Bacon's 
intended great work, 267 ; division 
of the work, 269 ; extract from, 
upon the idols of the den, 274 ; ex- 
tract from, upon the proper motives 
in the investigation of truth, 277 ; 
style of, 297 ; various editions and 
translations of, see note B B B at the 
end ; attainment of the right road 
to truth the object of, 282 ; extract 
from, upon eradication of idols, 335. 

Opinion, tenacity in retaining the 
parent of prejudice, 273 ; formation 
of, facts the groundwork of, 283. 

Overbury, Sir Thomas, trial of Weston 
for the murder of, 182 ; trial of the 
Earl and Countess of Somerset for 
the murder of, 184. 

Oxford, Gibbon's opinion of, see note 
(«), 7. 

Paley, extract from, upon the inde- 
pendency of a judge, 245. 

Pan, table of, 279. 

Parentage of Bacon, 1. 

Parliament, Bacon's first speech in, 
upon the improvement of the law, 
(el. 32, 27 ; Bacon's speech upon 
the delay of the subsidies, 27 ; Ba- 
con's eloquence in, 28 ; Bacon's 
brilliant career in, 44 ; 1599, Ba- 
con's exertions and frequent speeches 
in, 44 ; Bacon's first session elected 
for St. Alban's and Ipswich, 106; 
1605, Bacon's exertions in, and 
frequent speeches, 119 ; 1614, the 
question as to the eligibility of the 
attorney-general to sit in, discussed, 
148 ; disturbances in, in conse- 
quence of certain rumours respect- 
ing a confederacy to control the 
House, 161 ; Bacon's exertions in, 
155 ; Bacon's powerful speech in, 
respecting the absurdity of the al- 
leged confederacy to control the 
House, 161, see outline in note; 
dissolution of, in consequence of 
the King's failure to procure sup- 
plies, 1614, 163 ; 1620, summoning 
of, advised by Bacon to procure be- 
nevolences, 302 ; King's address to, 
see note A, 305 ; adjourned, in the 
hope of defeating the popular dis- 
content, 327; 1621, meeting of, 
and allusion to the King's interview 
with Bacon, 348. 



Party, division of the court into the 
Cecil and Leicester, 25 ; Leicester, 
Bacon's union with, 26. 

Passions, query as to the enquiry into 
the nature of, 114. 

Patent for Dulwich College, Bacon's 
stay of, from the conviction that 
education was the best charity, 222. 

Patent and latent instances or ob- 
servations of extremes in the search 
after a nature, 292. 

Patents, extract from Bacon's address 
to the bar upon his intended caution 
with respect to, 214 ; Bacon's con- 
scientious stay of, uninfluenced by 
the King's poverty and Bucking- 
ham's power, 222 ; rapacious, con- 
trived by Buckingham, 306 ; re- 
called by the King, 326. 

Patience, the propriety of, in a good 
judge, 250 ; amiable of Sir M. Hale, 
upon interruption, 254. 

Patron, Bacon's fitness as a, for the 
office of Chancellor, from his opi- 
nions upon his various duties, see 
note (a), 199 ; Bacon's advice to 
Villiers upon the duties of a, 199 ; 
Paley's opinions upon the duty of a, 
202 ; Bacon's high conduct as a, 
see his appointment of an old clergy- 
man and of the judges, 199, 200. 

Patronage, church, Bacon's opinions 
upon the duties of, see his advice to 
Villiers, 199 ; Bacon's honorable, 
of an old clergyman, see his letter, 
199 ; of merit by Bacon and other 
great men of various ages, from their 
sympathy with intellect and their 
consciousness of the miseries re- 
sulting from ignorance, 201, 202 ; 
Paley's opinion upon the moral duty 
of impartial, note, 202 ; Sir Edward 
Coke and Lord Chancellor Wrottes- 
ley's opinions upon the subject of, 
199. 

Peachum, proceedings against, an old 
clergyman of 70, for certain treason- 
able passages in a sermon found in 
his study, 169 ; preliminary exa- 
mination by torture to discover his 
intentions, 169 ; letters of Bacon 
concerning, to the King, 169, 170; 
private conference, by order of the 
King, with the judges, respecting 
the law of his case, 171 ; Cham- 
berlain's account of his case, see 
note (6), 177. 

Pensions, Bacon's endeavour to cur- 
tail, note (c), 221. 






INDEX TO THE LIFE. 



CCCCXCIU 



Perpetuities, the celebrated case of, 
argued by Bacon, 1599, at. 39, 43. 
Philosopher, minute, extract from, 
upon the merits of a life devoted to 
the impartial search after truth, see 
note, 193, 194 ; in his study com- 
pared to a judge upon the bench, 
269. 
Philosophy, history, natural and ex- 
perimental, the groundwork of a 
sound, 261 ; of Aristotle, popu- 
larity of, in the time of Bacon, at 
Cambridge, 7 ; Bacon's contempt 
of Aristotle's, 8 ; the pursuit of, 
Bacon's ultimate object, 25, 26 ; 
Bacon's opinion of the proper style 
of, 124; natural, human, divine, 
investigation of, in Bacon's Ad- 
vancement of Learning, 2 book, 133 ; 
the superior utility and advantages of 
a life of, as compared with other 
pursuits, see note (d) 193, 194 ; 
signs of false, 280 ; causes of the 
errors of, 280 ; of Pythagoras, 
founded upon superstition, 283. 
Physicians, antipathy of, to improve- 
ment, see Hunter, note (a) 275. 
Plan of a college, Bacon's magnifi- 
cent, 13, 14, 15. 
Paulet, Sir Amias, Bacon's tour to 

France under the care of, 16. 
Pleasures, extract from Bacon upon, 

150. 
Plutarch, extract from, upon the cus- 
tom of receiving presents from the 
suitors at Athens, by authority of 
law, 207. 
Poetry, parabolical, Bacon's wisdom 

of the ancients a species of, 149. 
Politician, speculations in the field of 
contemplation frequently injurious 
to the efforts of, 195 ; union of con- 
templation and action in the cha- 
racter of a, incompatible, 195 ; the 
selfishness of the mere, 201 ; Ba- 
con's sacrifice as a judge to his 
feelings as a, note (d) 223 ; the 
character of, irreconcileable with 
that of the impartial judge, 225. 
Politicians, objections of, to learning, 
127 ; antipathy of, to improvement, 
275. 
Politics, Bacon's exertions in the field 
of, 155 ; Burke's opinion upon the 
impropriety of a judge's being con- 
nected with, 243, see note, Hale's 
life, 244. 
Popular discontent, 102. 
Portrait of Bacon, 17. 



Powder of sympathy, Kenelm Digby, 

284. 
Power, the tendency of, to deprave 
ordinary minds, 155 ; its effect upon 
a great mind, see instance, Sir M. 
Hale, 155 ; worldly, contemptible 
as compared to the advancement of 
knowledge, 192. 
Prejudice, removal of, first division of 
Bacon's Novum Organum, 269; 
tenacity in retaining opinion the 
parent of, 273. 
Prerogative instances, by which nature 
sought may be most easily disco- 
vered, 290. 
Presents, the salary of chancellor 
composed partly of, from the suitors, 
202 ; custom of receiving, common 
in the age of Bacon and his pre- 
decessors, 203, see note (c) ; letter to 
Lord Burleigh from the Bishop of 
Durham, 203, and note (a) 204, 
extract from a manuscript in the 
reign of Henry VI. ; by Bacon to 
the Queen, according to custom 
upon his application for the soli- 
citorship, 203 ; anecdotes of Bacon 
respecting his rejection of, note (6) 
205 ; Sir T. More's inflexibility to, 
note (b) 205 ; to the chancellor, the 
custom common in the reign of 
Henry VI., note (a) 204; the cus- 
tom of receiving from the suitors 
common in all nations approaching 
civilization, 206, see passage in Plu- 
tarch, Homer, Montesquieu, 206, 
207 ; abolition of the custom of re- 
ceiving, by the Chancellor d' l'Ho- 
pital in France, 206 ; to Bacon, 
from the suitors, immediately upon 
his appointment to the great seal, 
209 ; to Bacon, according to cus- 
tom by the suitor's counsel, see 
Wraynham's, Egerton's, Awbrey's, 
Hody's, and the apothecaries' causes, 
237, 238, 239 ; advised by counsel, 
316; custom to receive, 317; com- 
mon to all civilized governments, 
318 ; to Lord Bacon, upon accept- 
ing the great seal, 319 ; notes as 
to, 318, 319 ; furniture, &c. given 
openly in the time of Bacon, 334 ; 
given after judgment, 335. 
Prisoners, Sir E. Coke's brutal treat- 
ment of, 145 ; Bacon's mildness to, 
153. 
Privy Council, Essex's trial before, 
upon the republication of his apo- 
logy, 66. 



CCCCXC1V 



INDEX TO THE LIFE. 



Production, one of the divisions of the 
art of experimenting, 263. 

Profession of law, Bacon's choice of, 
compelled by circumstances, see in- 
dex, law, 19 ; Bacon's favorite opi- 
nion of the debt due from lawyers 
to their, 27 ; the duties of a judge 
to the, 255. 

Professional objections to learning, 
127. 

Puckering, lord keeper in the time of 
Elizabeth, 30 ; his misrepresenta- 
tions to the Queen, upon Bacon's 
application for the solicitorship, 30; 
Essex's letter to, in behalf of Ba- 
con, respecting the solicitorship, see 
note, 31. 

Punishment, capital, Bacon's protest 
against, 151 : Bacon's opinions 
upon the inefficacy of severe, 156. 

Pygmalion, illustration by, of the idle- 
ness of the study of words, 129. 

Pythagoras's answer to Hiero upon 
retirement, 122. 

Queen Elizabeth, her prediction 
with respect to Bacon, 21 ; her 
appointment of Bacon as her coun- 
sel extraordinary, 24 ; her anger 
with Bacon upon his speech for 
the delay of the subsidies, 28 — 30 ; 
Lord Keeper Puckering's misre- 
presentations to, against Bacon, 
30 ; Bacon's dutiful letter to, upon 
his disappointment respecting the 
solicitorship, 31 ; Bacon's letter to, 
praying the solicitorship, 32 ; cha- 
racter of, as shown in Bacon's apo- 
logy, 45 ; her dissatisfaction with 
Essex's administration in Ireland, 
49 ; her reception of Essex upon his 
return, and her affection for him, 
51 ; letter of Bacon to, respecting 
her choice of him as counsel against 
Essex, 64 ; her choice of Bacon as 
counsel against Essex, 66 ; her in- 
terview with Bacon after the sen- 
tence upon Essex, and her affection 
for Essex, 71 ; her letter to Essex 
respecting the creation of knights in 
Ireland, see note (b), 76 ; her dis- 
gust at Essex's application for the 
renewal of the patent for sweet wines, 
83 ; Essex's bitter sarcasms upon, 
and violence in consequence of her 
refusal of his suit, 85 ; her total 
alienation from Essex, 85 ; her dis- 
pleasure with Bacon upon his at- 
tempted interference for Essex, 85, 



86 ; her apprisal of Essex's trea= 
sonable assemblies at his house, 87 ; 
Bacon's fruitless intercessions with, 
upon Essex's conviction of treason, 
92 ; her order to Bacon to draw up 
a full statement of Essex's treasons, 
92 ; the effect of Essex's conduct 
upon, and her unhappy death, 94 ; 
Bacon's eulogy upon, 95 ; her ac- 
quaintance with the torture, see note, 
175 ; Bacon's present to, according 
to the custom of the times, upon 
his application for the solicitorship, 
203. 

Raleigh, Sir W., Sir Edward Coke's 
improper treatment of upon his trial, 
and vulgar invective, see note (c), 
146. 
Rawley and Tennison, their private 
knowledge of Bacon's motives for 
deserting his defence, 374. 
Reasoning, worthless unless founded 

upon facts, 283. 
Reform, insisted upon by the people, 
103 ; Bacon's efforts towards gene- 
ral, 138 ; of the law, Bacon's efforts 
towards, 138 ; of the church, Ba- 
con's efforts to promote, 140 ; see 
his tracts, 141 ; of abuses, commit- 
tees to consider of, 307. 
Resemblances and differences, obser- 
vation of, in search after a cause, 
295. 
Resignation, the duty of, early in a 
judge, see Hale's Life, note (r), 
256. 
Results, table of, of natures agreeing 

with nature sought, 289. 
Retirement from active life, error of 
common minds, 122 ; danger of, 
122. 
Revolutions, sudden only to the un- 
thinking, 102. 
Rex v. Knollys, Holt's, C. J. inde- 
pendent refusal to state the reasons 
of his judgment in, 249. 
Reynell and Peacock, charge against 
Bacon in, rebutted, see note (6) Ba- 
con's defence, 339 ; answer to the 
charge of, touching a ring, 365. 
Riches, not greatness in a state, 117. 
Russwell, money received from, by 
Lord Bacon's servant, Hunt, 366. 

Sailors, antipathy of, 275. 

Salisbury, Lord, Bacon's letter to, re- 
specting his appointment as Attorney 
General, see note (b), 154. 



INDEX TO THE LIFE. 



CCCCXCV 



Sanquhar, Bacon's prosecution of, on 
behalf of the crown, and his mild- 
ness towards, 153. 

Saturn and Jupiter, Bacon's illustra- 
tion by, of the union of contempla- 
tion and action, 61, 137. 

Science, Bacon's meditations upon 
natural and human, 17 ; Bacon's 
extensive views of, not diverted by 
his profession, 22 ; of law, Bacon's 
valuable work upon the improve- 
ment of the, 22 ; the loss to, by 
Bacon's acceptance of the chan- 
cellorship compensated by his pro- 
fessional and political labours, 195. 

Sciences, division of, of Bacon's in- 
complete treatises part of his in- 
tended great work, 267. 

Scott, Bacon's defence against the 
charge in, the gift being received 
after the decree, 363. 

Scotland, Bacon's efforts to promote 
the union with England, 139 ; 
King James's journey to, in com- 
pany with Buckingham, see note 
(6), 211. 

Seals, sequestration of, 370. 

Seneca, extract from, upon the com- 
parative advantages and utility of a 
life of contemplation, see note, 193. 

Senses, defects of, Novum Organum, 
see Seven Modes, 271 ; mode of pre- 
senting facts to, third division of 
Novum Organum, 270. 

Sentence upon Bacon, 372. 

Servants, Lord Bacon's, see Smith- 
wick, &c, 366, 367 ; Bacon's ad- 
mission of neglect respecting their 
conduct to suitors, 368. 

Singular instances, or observations of 
such as are peculiar amidst their 
own natures in the search after a 
nature, 293. 

Smithwick and Wyche, complete re- 
futation of charge, 366 ; charge 
against Bacon in, clearly rebutted, 
340. 

Solicitor General, Bacon appointed 
by the King, 143 ; Bacon's present 
to the Queen according to the cus- 
tom of the times upon his applica- 
tion for the office of, 203. 

Solicitorship, Bacon's letter to the 
Queen upon his disappointment 
respecting the, 31 ; Bacon's retire- 
ment to the country upon his dis- 
appointment respecting the, 34 ; 
Essex's indignation upon the re- 
fusal of the Solicitorship to Bacon, 



and his gift of an estate to him, 
34. 

Solitary instances, or consideration of 
such as are so in resemblance or 
difference in the search after a 
nature, 290. 

Somerset, his eclipse by Villiers, 179 ; 
Bacon's distaste to, 180 ; suspicions 
against the Earl and Countess of, 
and their trial for the murder of Sir 
Thomas Overbury, 184 ; Bacon's 
mild and temperate sketch against, 
note (b), 185. 

Sound, extract from Bacon's Sylva, 
upon the laws of, see note, 18; see 
disquisition upon, note (c), 4. 

Southampton, applied to by Bacon to 
promote his interest with King 
James, 99. 

Spain, Essex's appointment to the 
command of an expedition against, 
36 ; King James's treaty of mar- 
riage with, and Bacon's wise coun- 
sels against, 218. 

Speech of Bacon upon the absurdity 
of the supposed confederacy to con- 
trol the House of Commons, see 
outline in note 161 ; of Bacon, 
against Mr. O. St. John, 165 ; 
of Bacon against Owen upon his 
trial for high treason, see notes (a) 
and (b), 178 ; of Bacon against 
Talbot for high treason, see note (c), 
178 ; of Bacon against Sir J. Hollis, 
Mr. Lumsden, and Sir J. Went- 
worth, for certain reports respecting 
the Earl and Countess of Somerset, 
note (a), 184 ; of Bacon against the 
Earl and Countess of Somerset for 
the murder of Sir Thomas Overbury, 
184. 

Speeches of Bacon in Parliament, 44, 
119; of Bacon upon the union, 140. 

Star Chamber, a private investigation 
in, of Essex's administration in 
Ireland by declaration in his ab- 
sence, 53 ; Bacon's objections to 
private proceedings in, against 
Essex, 53 ; odium excited by private 
proceedings in, against Essex, 53 ; 
public proceedings in, by informa- 
tion against Essex, in consequence 
of the republication of his apology, 
56: Bacon's objections to the public 
proceedings in, against Essex, 56, 
57 ; Bacon chosen counsel against 
Essex upon the public proceedings 
against, in the, 59 ; trial of Mr. 
Oliver St. John for a letter declaring 



CCCCXCV1 



INDEX TO THE LIFE. 



the illegality of the King's demand, 
of presents, 164 ; Bacon's speech in, 
against Mr. O. St. John, see note 
(a), 165; prosecution in, of Mr. 
Markham for sending a challenge to 
Lord Darcy, 189 ; trial of Lord and 
Lady Suffolk in, for trafficking with 
the public money, 226 ; trial of 
Wraynham in, for a libel against 
Bacon, 234. 

States, greatness of, dependent more 
upon martial valour and union and 
not upon territory and riches, 115, 
116,117. 

Statesman, Bacon's fitness as a, for 
the office of Chancellor from his 
education and reflection upon the 
subject of politics and eloquence, 
see notes (c) and (d), 198. 

Statesmen, defective education of, 12, 
see note (d), 11. 

Statute of uses, Bacon's argument 
upon the celebrated perpetuity case 
incorporated into his reading on, 
see note 3 Q at the end, 43. 

St. John, Mr. Oliver, letter of, re- 
specting the illegality of the King's 
demand of presents, 163 ; trial of, 
in the Star Chamber in consequence, 
164; Bacon's speech against, see 
note (a), 165 ; general opinion of 
the judges respecting the offence of, 
164. 

Suffolk, Lord and Lady, trial of, for 
trafficking with the public money, 
226. 

Sutton Hospital, Bacon's favourite opi- 
nion in his tract upon, as to the ad- 
vancement of learning being the 
best charity, 223. 

Sylva Sylvarum, extract from, upon 
the philosophy of Pythagoras, 283. 

Sympathy, Kenelm Digby's powder of, 
284. 

Systems, see short extract from Bacon's 
Wisdom of the Ancients, 150. 

System, Bacon's aversion to, 270. 

Table, affirmative and negative, Ba- 
con's plan of discovering truth, 269 ; 
affirmative and negative of compa- 
risons, of exclusions, Bacon's modes 
in the discovery of truth, 285 — 288 ; 
of results, of natures agreeing with 
nature sought, 289. 

Tanner manuscripts, Oxford, account 
of in, of Sir H. Mountagu's negotia- 
tion with Buckingham for the lord 
Treasurership, 227. 



Tempests of state, discontent of the 
people, 102. 

Temporis partus maximus, see index 
Novum Organum. 

Tenison, extract from, comparing 
Bacon's fall to Somers's shipwreck, 
378 ; and Rawley, their remark- 
able silence as to Bacon's motives 
for deserting his defence, 374. 

Tenterden, Lord, speech of, showing 
his opinion of the prejudice of law- 
yers, 276. 

Theatre, idols of, warping the mind in 
the search after truth, 276. 

Time, want of, an obstacle to the ac- 
quisition of, 278. 

Tindal, Sir J., Bertram's murder of, 

' see Bacon's account and letter to the 
King respecting, (see note, 240), 239. 

Torture, examination by, of Peacham, 
an old clergyman, preparatory to 
his prosecution for high treason, 1 69 ; 
the erroneous principle of the trial 
by, see note (a), 163, 164 ; Bacon's 
private opinion of the trial by, 175 ; 
Queen Elizabeth's acquaintance with 
the trial by, 175. 

Tract upon Helps to the intellectual 
powers, 111. 

Translation, of the divisions of the art 
of experimenting, 264. 

Travelling instances, or observation of 
a nature approaching to or receding 
from existence, 291. 

Treavor and Ascue, Bacon's defence 
against the charge in, 361. 

Trial of Essex, before the Privy Coun- 
cil, upon the republication of his 
apology, 66, see for a full account, 
note 4 C, at the end ; his submis- 
sive and artful demeanour upon, 
and his eloquence, 68 ; Bacon coun- 
sel against upon, and his secret 
friendliness to Essex, 67, 68 ; the 
confused account of the, by Hume 
and other historians, 69 ; the sen- 
tence upon Essex, 69; the unjust 
obloquy excited against Bacon by, 
72 ; of Lord Sanquhar, and Bacon's 
mildness towards, 153; of Mr. O. 
St. John, in the Star Chamber, see 
Bacon's speech against, in note, 
164; of Mr. Peacham, Mr. Owen, 
and Mr. Talbot, for high treason, 
167, 168 ; see Peacham ; 178 ; of 
Sir J. Hollis, Mr. Lumsden, and 
Sir J. Wentworth, for certain re- 
ports respecting the Earl and Coun- 
tess of Somerset, 184 ; of the Earl 



INDEX TO THE LIFE. 



CCCCXCV11 



and Countess of Somerset for the 
murder of Sir Thomas Overbury, 
184; of Mr. Markham, in the Star 
Chamber, for sending a challenge 
to Lord Darcy, 189 ; of Lord and 
Lady Suffolk for trafficking' with the 
public money, 226. 

Trinity college, see Cambridge. 

Tribe, idols of warping the judgment 
in the search after truth, 273. 

Truth, Bacon's theory upon the mode 
of discovering, 35 ; Bacon's mode 
in the discovery of, 62 ; Bacon's 
simple mode of illustrating, 123 ; 
the investigation of, and advance- 
ment of knowledge an infinitely 
higher object than worldly power, 
192 ; the impartial investigation of, 
an infinitely higher object than the 
pursuits of the statesman or hero, 
193, 194 ; discovery of, conduct of 
the understanding in, Novum Or- 
ganum, a treatise upon" part of Ba- 
con's intended great work, 267 ; 
best discovered in small and fami- 
liar instances, Bacon's favourite doc- 
trine, 268 ; Bacon's mode of dis- 
covering, compared to the proceed- 
ings in a court of justice, 269 ; the 
four requisites in the discovery of, 
270 ; investigation of idols warping 
the mind in, 273 ; proper motives 
in the investigation of, extract from 
Novum Organum, 277 ; Bacon's 
mode in the discovery of, see affir- 
mative table, 285 ; Bacon's theory 
as to, and mode of investigating, 
Erown the philosopher's objections 
to, and Bacon's anticipation of, 298 ; 
Coleridge's objection to Bacon's 
mode of investigating, and Bacon's 
anticipation of, 300. 

Turner, Mrs., Sir Edward Coke's brutal 
conduct to her upon her trial, 145. 

Understanding, warps of, see Locke, 
note (a), 272 ; conduct of, in the 
investigation of truth, 283. 

Undertakers to control the house, the 
rumour excited against the King 
respecting, 161 ; Bacon's powerful 
speech upon the absurdity of the 
rumour respecting, see outline in 
note, 161. 

Union, Bacon's exertions respecting, 
see note (g), 109 ; and efforts to 
promote, 139. 

Universality, abandoning, one of the 

VOL. XV. 



errors in the investigation of truth, 
273. 

Universities, Bacon's praise of the in- 
stitutions of, in genera], 7 ; Bacon's 
opinion of the English, 10 ; Bacon's 
tract upon the defects of, 1 1 ; defect 
in there being no lectures upon the 
passions in the English, 113; de- 
fects of, see Bacon's Advancement 
of Learning, Book II., 133 ; inter- 
ference by, in causes depending, 
233 ; imperfect collections for ex- 
periment in, 278 

University education, neglect of use- 
ful knowledge, 112, see note Q Q Q. 

Valour, martial, the strength of a 
state dependent upon, rather than 
riches and territory, 117. 

Variation of the divisions of the art of 
experimenting, 264. 

Verulam, Bacon's magnificent house 
of retirement at, 257. 

Villiers, his mercenariness, see Tanner 
MSS., respecting his negotiation 
with Sir H. Mountagu, note, 127, 
128, et seq. ; his birth and parent- 
age, 179 ; his character and person, 

179 ; his determination to try his 
fortune at court, 179 ; King James's 
attachment to, 179 ; his admission 
into the King's household, 179 ; 
his successive honours and final 
creation as Duke of Buckingham, 

180 ; his letter to Bacon upon the 
regulation of his conduct at court, 
note (a), see reply, 180 ; his friend- 
ship for Bacon, 180 ; Bacon's let- 
ter to, upon the dispute respecting 
the jurisdiction of the Court of 
Chancery, 186 ; Bacon's letter to, 
upon the motion to swear him privy 
councillor, 187 ; Bacon's letter to, 
upon his appointment as Chan- 
cellor, 190 ; Bacon's letter to, con- 
taining Chancellor Brackley's opi- 
nion of his powers, see note (c), 
187; Bacon's advice to, upon the 
appointment of good judges, note(b), 
198 ; his journey, while Earl of 
Buckingham, with the King to 
Scotland, as prime minister and 
master of the revels, 211 ; his po- 
licy in surrounding the King with 
buffooneries, 212 ; his constant 
communication with Bacon during 
the King's progress, 203 ; Bacon's 
letter to, upon taking his seat as 

kk 



CCCCXCVlll 



INDEX TO THE LIFE. 



Lord Keeper, showing his contempt 
for the pomp of office, 217; his 
quarrel with Bacon upon his oppo- 
sition to his marriage and bitter let- 
ters to, see note (a,), 219 ; his recon- 
ciliation with Bacon and marriage, 
220 ; Bacon's letter to, upon the 
retrenchment of the royal expenses, 
&c. 220 ; his letter to Bacon upon 
his stay of the patents during the 
King's distresses, n ote (&), 222; 
Bacon's letter to, showing his sa- 
crifice as a judge to his feelings as 
a politician, 223 ; Bacon's letter to, 
upon Suffolk's case, 223 ; created 
Marquis of Buckingham, 222 ; let- 
ters of Sir H. Mountagu to, nego- 
tiating for the Lord Treasurership, 
227, 229; letter of Sir Edward 
Villiers to, respecting Sir H. Moun- 
tagu's offer, 228 ; his impeachment 
respecting the sale of the treasurer- 
ship to Sir H. Mountagu after the 
death of James, note, 230. 
Vintners, refutation of charge of ex- 
tortion in their case, 367. 

Walton, his life of Herbert, extract 
from, giving an account of his de- 
voutness and humility upon his in- 
duction, note, 214. 

Wealth, desire of, an interruption to 
the progress of knowledge, 192. 

Wentworth, Sir J., trial of, see Hollis, 
Sir J. 

Wharton and Willoughby, see note (&), 
323 ; Bacon's defence to the charge 
in the cause of, 360. 

Whitgift, Dr. John, Bacon's tutor, 
afterwards archbishop of Canter- 
bury, 5. 

Will, Lord Bacon's, extract from, 374. 

Williams, archbishop, Bishop Hacket's 
account of his humility, when taking 
his seat as lord keeper, 213 ; his 
subtle advice to King James to con- 
tinue the parliament to crush Bacon, 
242 ; consulted by Buckingham, 



who advises him to sacrifice Mom- 
pesson and Michell, 311; his ad- 
vice to the King and Buckingham 
to brave the popular discontent, 342 ; 
lord keeper, great seals delivered to 
him, with permission to retain all 
his livings, 376. 

Wilson, extract from, upon King 
James's journey to Scotland, note 
(6), 211 ; his account in note of the 
effect of the King's demand upon 
the public mind, see note, 143. 

Wisdom of the Ancients, Bacon's pub- 
lication of his work entitled, 148 ; 
the work a species of parabolical 
poetry, 149. 

Witnesses, the duty of a j udge to, 253 ; 
examined against Bacon, 323. 

Words, study of, Bacon's low estimate 
of, 128 ; study of, a distemper of 
learning, illustrated by Pygmalion, 
129. 

Wroth and Mainwaring, ridiculous 
charge against Bacon in the cause 
of, 338 ; Bacon's defence against 
the charge in, the gift being received 
after the decree, 363. 

Wraynham, Bacon's decree against, 
and his publication of a libel against 
Bacon, 234 ; trial of, for the libel 
against Bacon, 234; v. Fisher, pre- 
sents to Bacon in the cause of, ac- 
cording to custom, by counsel, 237 ; 
v. Fisher, charge of bribery against 
Bacon in the cause of, see note (a), 
237. 

Wrottesley, Lord Chancellor, his opi- 
nions upon the subject of patronage, 
note (6), 199. 

Yelverton, attorney-general, prose- 
cution of, at the instance of Buck- 
ingham, see note B, 308. 

York House, bestowed upon Bacon as 
a place of residence, 258; celebra- 
tion of Bacon's 60th birth-day at, 
258 ; see Ben Jonson's ode, 259. 



NOTES. 



A. Life, p. i. 

A little beyond Hungerford Market had been of old the Bishop of Norwich's 
Inn, but was exchanged in 1535, in the reign of Henry VIII. for the Abbey 
of St. Bennett Holme, in Norfolk. The next year Charles Brandon, Duke 
of Suffolk, exchanged his house called Southwark Place for it. In Queen 
Mary's reign it was purchased by Heath, Archbishop of York, and called 
York House. Toby Matthew, archbishop in the time of James I. exchanged 
it with the crown, and had several manors in lieu of it. The Lord Chancellors 
Egerton and Bacon resided in it ; after which it was granted to the favourite 
Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, who made it a magnificent house. In 1648, 
the parliament bestowed it on Lord Fairfax, whose daughter and heir marrying 
George Villiers, second Duke of Buckingham, it reverted again to the true 
owner, who for some years after the restoration resided in it. On his disposal 
of it, several streets were laid out on the site and ground belonging to it. 
These go generally under the name of York Buildings ; but his name and 
title is preserved in George, Villiers, Duke, and Buckingham Streets, and even 
the particle of is not forgotten, being preserved in Of Alley. — See Maitland's 
London, 482, Vol. I. 

The house is situated at the top of Villiers Street, North front towards the 
Strand, East front towards Villiers Street. In two closets on the first floor 
there is a part of the old ceiling. In the lease of the house it is called " York 
House." It is now, 1832, occupied by G. Roake, bookseller and stationer, 
York House, 31, Strand, corner of Villiers Street. 

B. Life, p. i. 

Sir Anthony Cooke, characterised by Camden as vir untiqua serenitaU, was 
born at Giddy Hall, in Essex. He was a man eminent in all the circles of 
the arts, preferring contemplation to active life, and skilled in education. 
** Contemplation," says Lloyd, " was his soul : privacy his life : and discourse 
his element. Business was his purgatory : and publicity his torment. He 
took more pleasure to breed up statesmen than to be one. He managed his 
family and children with such prudence and discretion, that Lord Seymour 
standing by one day when this gentleman chid his son, said ' Some men govern 
families with move skill than others do kingdoms : ' and thereupon commended 
him to the government of his nephew, Edward VI. Such the majestie ot 
his looks and gate, that awe governed ; such the reason and sweetness, that 
love obliged all his family : a family equally afraid to displease so good a head, 
and to offend so great. In their marriage they were guided by his reason, more 
than his will ; and rather directed by his counsel, than led by his authority. 

He had five daughters, whose education he superintended ; and, thinking 
that women are as capable of learning as men, he instilled that to his daughters 
at night, what he had taught the prince in the day ; and all the daughters of 
Sir Anthony Cooke were perfectly skilled in the learned languages. They 
married suitably to the education with which they had been formed. 



1. Mildred, "] 

2. Ann, 

3. Katherine, 

4. Elizabeth, 

5. . 


■ married to - 


William Cecil, Lord Treasurer of England. 
Nicholas Bacon, Lord Keeper. 
Sir Henry Killigrew. 
Sir Thomas Hobby. 
Sir Ralph Rowlet. 


OL. XV. 




1 



NOTE C. 

Elizabeth survived Sir Thomas Hobby, and married John, Lord Russel. Theie 
is a portrait of her at Mr. Vansittart's, Bisham Abbey, enamelled by Bone. 

Sir Anthony Cooke died June 11, 1576, and is buried in the chapel at Rom- 
ford. — Birch's Elizabeth, 11. 

Portrait of Lady Cooke, wife of Sir Anthony, by Holbein, at Woburn, ena- 
melled by Bone. 

C. Life, p. i. 

Sir Nicholas Bacon was a man full of wit and wisdom : was a gentleman 
and a man of law and of great knowledge therein. He had the deepest reach 
into affairs of any man that was at the council table : the knottiest head to 
pierce into difficulties : the most comprehensive judgment to surround the 
merits of a cause : the strongest memory to recollect all circumstances of a 
business at one view : the greatest patience to debate and consider : and the 
clearest reason to urge any thing that came in his way in the court of chancery. 
His favour was eminent with his mistress, and his alliance strong with her 
statesmen. He was lord keeper of the great seal during the time of Elizabeth. 
He was, in a word, a father of his country and of Sir Francis Bacon. Lloyd. 

He was a moderate man : " Mediocria firma" was his principle and practice. 
He is described by Camden as " Vir praspinquis, ingenio acerrimo, singulari 
prudentia, summa eloquentia, tenaci memoria, et sacris conciliis alterium colu- 
men." 

Sir Nicholas Bacon, a most eloquent man, of as sound learning and wisdom 
as England had in many ages, with the old Lord William Burghley, lord trea- 
surer, have above others been admired and commended in their public speeches 
in parliament. Peacham, Cent. 44. 

Sir Nicholas Bacon, lord keeper, ob. 1 579, February 20 : in him was united 
for the first time the office of lord chancellor and that of lord keeper, but in 
1564, being suspected of having favoured the succession of the house of Gray, 
he fell into disgrace and was forbad to appear at court, or to interfere in any 
public affairs except those of chancery, where he continued to preside, with an 
unblemished reputation, till his death. Lodge, T. 306. 

Sir Nicholas Bacon, keeper in the reign of Elizabeth, died lamented by her 
and the nation, 20th February, 1578-9. He was interred in the cathedral of 
St. Paul's, where a monument was erected to him, which was destroyed by the 
fire of London, 1666. 

Sir Nicholas had much of that penetrating genius, solidity of judgment, per- 
suasive eloquence, and comprehensive knowledge of law and equity, which 
afterwards shone forth with so great a lustre in his son, who was as much infe- 
rior to his father in point of prudence and integrity, as his father was to him in 
literary accomplishments. He was the first lord keeper that ranked as lord 
chancellor. Promoted 1558-9 : ob. 20th February, 1578-9. 

It is interesting to see the resemblance between the minds of Sir Nicholas 
and of his son. Sir Nicholas was an eminent statesman, with the refinement of 
a courtier : a learned lawyer, eloquent, and devoted to science, with a passion 
for building : qualities by which his son was distinguished through life. 

Queen Elizabeth told him his house was too little for him, " Not so, madam," 
returned he, " but your majesty has made me too great for my house." When 
Elizabeth asked Francis in his childhood how old he was, he answered that he 
was two years younger than her majesty's happy reign. 

In that court, and in the star-chamber, he made use, on proper occasions, of 
set speeches, in which he was happier than most men, pleasing the people by 
their sound, and charming the wisest men of that age with their sense, whence 
he attained the reputation of uniting two opposite characters, viz. of a witty and 
a weighty speaker.* Ben Jonson says nearly the same of Lord Bacon. There 
happened in my time one noble speaker, who was full of gravity in his speak- 
ing. His language (where he could spare or pass by a jest) was nobly cen- 
sorious. No man ever spake more neatly, more pressly, more weightily, or 

* Peacham's Compleat Gentleman, p. 43. 



NOTE C. 

suffered less emptiness, less idleness, in what he uttered. No member of his 
speech but consisted of its own graces. His hearers could not cough, or look 
aside from him without loss. He commanded where he spoke ; and had his 
judges angry and pleased at his devotion. No man had their affections more in 
his power. The fear of every man that heard him was, lest he should make an 
end. 

The devotion of Sir Nicholas to science may be seen in inscriptions in diffe- 
rent parts of his seat at Gorhambury. Over a gate leading into the orchard, 
which had a garden on one side and a wilderness on the other, under the 
statue of Orpheus, stood these verses : 

Horrida nuper eram aspectu latebraeque ferarum, 

Rurieolis tantum numinibusque locus. 
Edomitor fausto hue dum forte supervenit Orpheus 

Ulterius qui me non sinit esse rudem ; 
Convocat, avulsis virgulta virentia truncis 
Et sedem qua? vel Diis placuisse potest, 
Sicque mei cultor, sic est mihi cultus et Orpheus : 
Floreat O noster cultus amorque diu. 

This too was the favourite image of Francis. In Orpheus's Theatre all beasts 
and birds assembled, and forgetting their several appetites, some of prey, some 
of game, some of quarrel, stood all sociably together, listening to the airs and 
accords of the harp ; the sound whereof no sooner ceased, or was drowned by 
some louder noise, but every beast returned to his own nature ; wherein is aptly 
described the nature and condition of men : who are full of savage and unre- 
claimed desires of profit, of lust, of revenge, which, as long as they give ear to 
precepts, to laws, to religion, sweetly touched with eloquence, and persuasion 
of books, of sermons, of harangues ; so long is society and peace maintained ; 
but if these instruments be silent, or sedition and tumult make them not audible, 
all things dissolve into anarchy and confusion. 

In the orchard was a little banquetting-house, adorned with great curiosity, 
having the liberal arts beautifully depicted on its walls, over them the pictures 
of such learned men as had excelled in each, and under them, verses expressive 
of the benefits derived from the study of them. 

Grammar. Lex sum sermonis linguarum regula certa, 

Qui me non didicit camera nulla petat. 
Arithmetick. Ingenium exacuo, numeiorum arcana recludo, 

Qui numeros didicit quid didicisse nequit. 
Logick. Divido multiplies, res explanoque latentes 

Vera exquiro, falsa arguo, cuncta probo. 
Mcsick. Mitigo mcerores, et acerbas lenio cruras, 

Gestiat ut placidis mens hilarata sonis. 
Rhetorick. Me duce splendescit, gratis prudentia verbis 

Jamque ornata nitet quae fuit ante rudis. 
Geometry. Corpora describo rerum et quo singula pacto 

Apte sunt formis appropriata suis. 
Astrology. Astrorum lustrans cursus viresque potentes, 

Elicio miris fata futura modis. 
So, too, Francis had his banquetting-house and fish-ponds, as will be 
explained in a subsequent part of this work. They may now be seen at Gor- 
hambury, in a field called the Ponyard — the Pondyard. His passion for build- 
ing appeared in his mansion and gardens at Gorhambury, near St. Albans, and 
in his New Atlantis are the statues of eminent men. 

Sir Nicholas's first wife was Jane Fernly, of West Creting, in Suffolk, by whom 
he had six children. His second wife was Anne, the daughter of Sir Anthony 
Cooke, of Giddy Hall, Essex, by whom he had two sons, Anthony and Francis, 
who was the celebrated Lord Verulam. His death is said to have been occasioned 
by accident, on the 20th of February, 1579; and, on the 9th of March, he was 
buried with great solemnity, under a sumptuous monument erected by himselif 
in St. Paul's church, with the following inscription by Buchannan : 



NOTE C. 

Hie Nicolaum ne Baconum conditum, 
Existima ilium, tarn diu Britannici 
Regni secundum columen, exitium malis, 
Bonis Asylum ; caeca quern non extulit 
Ad hunc honorem sors, sed aequitas, fides, 
Doctrina, Pietas, unica et Prudentia, 
Neu morte raptum crede, quia unica brevi 
Vita perennes emeruit duas : agit 
Vitam secundam caelites inter animus, 
i Fama implet orbem, vita quae illi tertia est. 

Hac positum in ara est corpus olim animi domus, 
Ara dicata sempiternae Memoriae. 

There are various pictures of the lord keeper ; there are two in Gorhambury 
House; a print in Musgrave's collection, lord keeper, aet. 68, 1579. Picture 
in Euston House, Suffolk. Picture by Zucchero in Lennerd House, Norfolk. 
Picture in Brome Hall, Suffolk — motto, Mediocria Firma. Picture at Bennet 
College, Cambridge. Picture in King's Weston House, Gloucestershire. 
Knowle House, Kent. By Zucchero, at Woburn. See Walpole's Painters. 
Pennant's Journey. In the Horologia, 8vo. a Vandenwooffe, 1559. "Vertue sc. 
large 4to. Vertue, &c. a small oval engraving, with other heads, in the frontis- 
piece to Burnet's Abridgment of the History of the Reformation. Portrait of 
Anne, wife of Sir Nicholas, lord keeper, at Gorhambury, enamelled by Bone. 
His bust and of his wife Anne, and of their son, Francis, when twelve years 
old, are at Gorhambury. I saw them in April, 1825. They are of terra cotta, 
and coloured after the life. The bust of Francis is, as to the shape of the head, 
barrel like. Biographia Adversaria, vol. i. British Museum : Sir N. Bacon, 
lord keeper of the great seal, autograph, 1562, 1565, 1566. 

A great part of the furniture which belonged to the lord keeper is still care- 
fully preserved. The purse which was delivered with the great seal to Sir 
Nicholas Bacon, by the queen, is now in the possession of the Rev. John 
Long, rector of Coddenham, Suffolk, to whom it was bequeathed by the will of 
the Rev. Nathaniel Bacon, his predecessor in the living, and last male des- 
cendant of Nicholas, eldest son of Edward Bacon, esq. of Shrubland, the third 
son of Sir Nicholas by his first wife. The following is the pedigree of the lord 
keeper. 

Second Wife. First Wife. 

.^Nicholas BACON.t=pJaiie Fernley. 



i — i r 

T 



Barnham.e=FRANCis. Anthony. Nicholas. Edward. Anne. Jane. Elizabeth. 



No issue. Second Wife. 



First Wife. 



Anne Hopton.=Nathaniel.c==Anne Gresham 



1st Wife. 2d Hush, to Anne. 1st Hush, to Anne. 

Mary Croke=pSir Harbottle=j=Anne.epSir Thomas Elizabeth. Winifred. 
Grirnstone. | | Meautys. 

No issue. No is^sue. 



( ! , 

Mary- Elizabeth. Samuel. George. 

I I 

Adopted one of the Two daughters, of whom 

daughters of Samuel. one was adopted by Mary. 

This adopted child is the ancestor of the 
present Grirnstone, Earl Verulam. 

Nathaniel, tire second son, was, to use the words of Sir Nicholas his father, 
of best hope in learning. This appears from the following letter from the lord 
keeper, written when Francis was only eight years old. 



NOTE C. 

Harleian MS. 287, fo. 280. — " I have receyved yo r gentill and courteous 
lettre, and thank you hartely for it. And albeit my sonne hath begged this 
benefice of you, w ch indeed was yo r 9 by my promyse, yet I trust or it be long to 
provide some other of better value for you, in parte of satisfaction of this that is 
paste, ye shal be sure to have the first, and the best that I may gyve in eyther 
bothe shires. And in good faythe I am sory you have not this for yo r adver- 
tisement concerning Mr. Dopledick. I have great cause to thinke myself much 
beholden unto you, but herein (I thank you) I fynd by soundry weyes you do 
but as you are wonte, I should be much to blame if any tyme shall make me 
forgetfull of it, and remembring it I muste be unthankfull if I requyte it not, if 
it lye in my power. My desyer is that if you be acquaynted w th Mr. Dopledick, 
that you will of yo r self lett hym understand that I have told you my intention is 
to have my second sonne married in Suff., and w th all that I have requyered 
you, if you should understand of any convenient mariage for him to advertise 
me of it, and so furthe as you shall think moste meet. In deed of all my 
children he is of best hope in learning, and thereupon to feele his disposycion 
howe he is inclyned that waye, whereof I gladly wold be advertised w th some 
speed. And besyde I praye you signifie unto me th' age of the mayde, w th 
whome she hath ben brought up, and who maye be the meetest meanes to bring 
the same to passe, yf upon yo r significacyon I shall have cause to lyke of it, 
and of the other syde if you for want of a quayntaince w th hym be not meete to 
begyne to breake this matter (whereof I wold be very sory) then I wold gladly 
be enformed from you who were meet to do it. I have written to my sonne 
that he shall see yo r lettres conveyed w th speed, whensoever you are disposed to 
writt unto me, for in thies causes protracting of tyme may verye muche hinder, 
my meaning is not to have many acquainted w th this matter, till I knowe what 
will come of it. Thus wishing to you as to myself I bid you hartely farewell, 
from my house at Gorhambury the xxvijth of July, 1568. 

Yo r verey frynd, 
To my verye fiend Robert N. Bacon, C. S. 

Asshfeild, esquyer, geve 
these. 

Whatever may have been the promise of him when a youth, all which we 
now know of him is, that he was an artist of some merit. Grimstone, in his 
History of St. Albans, says, " He had a great talent for painting, and travelled 
into Italy to improve himself in that art." Lord Orford, in his History of 
Painting, ranks him very high in reputation, amongst the British artists. At 
Culford he left some few pieces of fruit and fish, but they are lost or destroyed, 
and the only remaining specimens of his works are preserved at Gorhambury, 
these are a full length portrait of himself, a cook supposed to have been a 
representation of Lady Bacon, with a great variety of dead game in the fore- 
ground, part of which appears unfinished, but the remainder has been greatly 
admired. There is also a small portrait of his mother. 

He is thus mentioned in Pennant's Journey from Chester. Near him is his 
accomplished kinsman, his half-brother, Sir Nathaniel Bacon, knight of the 
Bath, leaning back in his chair, in a green jacket laced, yellow stockings, a dog 
by him, and sword and pallet hung up. " In the art of painting, none," says 
Peacham, " deserveth more respect and admiration than Master Nathaniel 
Bacon, of Brome, in Suffolk ; not inferior, in my judgment, to our skillfullest 
masters." He improved his talent by travelling into Italy ; and left in this 
house, as a proof of the excellency of his performances, this portrait, and a most 
excellent one of a cook, a perfect Venus, with an old game-keeper ; behind is a 
variety of dead game, in particular a swan, whose plumage is expressed with 
inimitable softness and gloss. 

Sir Nath. Bacon se ipse p. Chambers se 4to. in the anecdotes of painting. 
Sir Nathaniel Bacon, second son of Sir Nicholas Bacon, painted his own por- 
trait and a cook maid, with large and small fowls, in a masterly manner. Both 
these pictures are at Gorhambury. He was ancestor to the present Lord Towns- 
hend. Mr. Nathaniel Bacon, younger son of Sir Micholas Bacon, knight and 



NOTp C. 

eldest baronet, deserveth great respect and admiration for his skill and practice 
in painting, and not inferior to our most skilful masters. Peachum Gent. 106. 
See, for a further account of Nathaniel, Walpole's Anecdotes of Painting, 316. 
Sir Nathaniel Bacon, knight of the Bath, younger son of Sir Nicholas Bacon, 
Wheeler. Picture, Gorhambury, by himself. Walp. Paint, i. 177. Sir Na- 
thaniel Bacon, knight, brother of Viscount St. Albans. Print in Musgrave's 
Collection, ii. 

Grimstone's History of Gorhambury, page 69. Sir Nathaniel, the second son 
of Sir Nicholas Bacon, married the daughter of Sir Thomas Gresham, and 
by her had three daughters, Anne, Elizabeth, and Winifred. Sir Nathaniel 
died in the lifetime of Lord St. Albans, at his seat at Culford, in the county of 
Suffolk, and was buried in the chancel of the church at Culford, where a monu- 
ment was erected to his memory ; and another at Stiffkey, in Norfolk, where he 
had also an estate and mansion. Anne, his eldest daughter, married first Sir 
Thomas Meautys, who died without issue, and now lies by his friend in St. 
Michael's church, at St. Albans. I, in 1830, traced his epitaph. It is partly 
covered by one of the pews. The inscription is as follows : 



Pew. 



TH THE BODY OF S R 

M r 4 W TYS v * 



Upon removing the pew, which now is upon part of the stone, there would no 
doubt appear on the first line HERE LIE 

and in the second line, THOMAS so that the inscription will be 

plain : " Here lieth the body of Sir Thomas Meawtys K l ." 

Grimstone's History of Gorhambury, page 62. Lord St. Albans had in his 
lifetime conveyed his estate and manor of Gorhambury to Sir John Constable 
and Sir Thomas Crewe, as trustees, by whom it was after his death conveyed to 
Sir Frances Leigh and others, in trust for the sole use of Sir Thomas Meautys, 
his relation and friend, who had married Anne, the only surviving daughter of 
Sir Nathaniel Bacon. Sir H. Grimstone bought Gorhambury of Sir Thomas 
Meautys. After the death of Sir Thomas Meautys, Anne married Sir Harbottle 
Grimstone, he having, as it seems, previously bought Gorhambury of Sir Thomas 
Meautys. 

Account of Sir Harbottle Grimstone and his wives : his second wife having 
been Anne, the daughter of Nathaniel, the second son of the lord keeper, and 
widow of Sir Thomas Meautys. 

Burnet, in his History of his Own Times, says, " And I applied myself to 
my studies, and my function being then settled preacher at the Rolls, and soon 
after lecturer of St. Clements. I lived many years under the protection of Sir 
Harbottle Grimstone, Master of the Rolls, who continued steady in his favour 
to me, though the King sent Secretary Williamson to desire him to dismiss me. 
He said he was an old man, fitting himself for another world, and he found my 
ministry useful to him, so he prayed he might be excused in that. This broke 
me quite with the court, and in that respect proved a great blessing to me : it 
brought me out of many temptations ; the greatest of all being the kindness 
that was growing toward me from the Duke, which might have involved me in 
great difficulties, as it did expose me to much censure ; all which went off upon 
this. He was a long and very kind patron to me. I continued ten years in 
that post, free from all necessities : and I thank God that was all I desired : 
but, since I was so long happy in so quiet a retreat, it seems but a just piece of 
gratitude, that I should give some account of that venerable old man. He was 
descended from a long-lived family • for his great grandfather lived till he was, 
ninety-eight, his grandfather to eighty-six, and his father to seventy-eight, and 
himself to eighty-two. He had to the last a great soundness of health, of 
memory, and of judgment. He was bred to the study of the law, being a 
younger brother. Upon the elder brother's death he threw it up ; but falling in 
love with Judge Croke's daughter, the father would not bestow her on him 



NOTE C. 

unless he would return to his studies, which he did with great success. That 
judge was one of those who delivered his judgment in the chequer-chamber 
against the ship-money, which he did with a long and learned argument ; and 
Sir Harbottle's father, who served in parliament for Essex, lay long in prison, 
because he would not pay the loan-money. Thus both his family and his wife's 
were zealous for the interest of their country. In the beginning of the long par- 
liament he was a great assertor of the laws, and inveighed severely against all 
that had been concerned in the former illegal oppression. His principle was, 
that allegiance and protection were mutual obligations; and that the one went 
for the other. He thought the law was the measure of both ; and that when a 
legal protection was denied to one that paid a legal allegiance, the subject had 
a right to defend himself. He was much troubled, when preachers asserted 
a divine right of legal government. He thought it had no other effect but to 
give an ill impression of them as aspiring men : nobody was convinced by it. 
It inclined their hearers rather to suspect all they said ; besides it looked like 
the sacrificing their country to their own preferment; and an encouraging of 
princes to turn tyrants : yet when the Long Parliament engaged in the league 
with Scotland, he would not swear to the covenant ; and he discontinued sitting 
in the house till it was laid aside : then he came back, and joined with Hollis, 
and the other presbyterians, in a high opposition to the independents, and to 
Cromwell in particular, as was told in the first book ; and he was one of the 
secluded members that were forced out of the house. He followed afterwards 
the practice of the law ; but was always looked upon as one who wished well to 
the ancient government of England : so he was chosen speaker of that house, 
that called home the King ; and had so great a merit in that whole affair, that 
he was soon after, without any application of his own, made Master of the 
Rolls : in which post he continued to his death with a high reputation, as he 
well deserved ; for he was a just judge ; very slow, and ready to hear every 
thing that was offered, without passion or partiality. I thought his only fault 
was that he was too rich : and yet he gave yearly great sums in charity, dis- 
charging many prisoners by paying their debts. He was a very pious and 
devout man, and spent every day, at least an hour in the morning, and as much 
at night, in prayer and meditation ; and even in winter, when he was obliged to 
be very early on the bench, he took care to rise so soon, that he had always the 
command of that time which he gave to those exercises. He was much 
sharpened against popery : but had always a tenderness to the Dissenters, 
though he himself continued still in the communion of the church." 

Burnet, in his History, thus speaks of Anne, "His second wife, whom I 
knew, ivas niece to the great Sir Francis Bacon; and was the last heir of that 
family. She had all the high notions for the church and for the crown in which 
she had been bred ; but was the humblest, the devoutest, and best tempered person 
I ever knew of that sort. It was really a pleasure to hear her talk of religion, she 
did it with so much elevation and force. She was always very plain in her 
clothes, and went off to gaols to consider the wants of the prisoners, and relieve or 
discharge them ; and, by the meanness of her dress, she passed but for a servant 
trusted vnth the charities of others. When she was travelling in the country, as 
she drew near a village she often ordered her coach to stay behind till she had 
icalked about it, giving orders for the instruction of the children, and leaving 
liberally for that end." 

There is a portrait of Anne at Gorhambury, and of both her husbands. 



D. Life, p. i. 

There are some observations upon the life of Anne, Lady Bacon, in the 
Biographia Britannica, in Note A to the life of Anthony Bacon, which says : 
" She made a florid and exact translation of Bishop Jewell's Apology for the 
Church of England, from Latin into English, which was esteemed so useful 
in its nature, as well as so correct in its manner, that in the year 1564 it was 
published for common use by the special order of Archbishop Parker, with 



NOTE I). 

some additions of his own at the end, and he refers to 2d Strype's Annals' 
469. Her parental care of her two sons, Anthony and Francis, two of the most 
extraordinary men of her time, and of any time, is, possibly, the best evidence 
of her powers : and which was deeply felt by Francis, who, in his will, says r 
" For my burial I desire it may be in St. Michael's church, near St. Albans, 
there was my mother buried." In Birch's Memoirs of the Reign of Queen 
Elizabeth, the extraordinary vigilance used by Lady Anne in superintending 
their conduct, long after they were adults, may be seen. 

The importance of early impressions, and, above all, of early infant educa- 
tion, can never be too strongly impressed upon the mind. The blessings atten- 
dant upon the performance of this duty, both to the child and to the parent, 
may be seen by a few facts, and conceived by any person who thinks of the 
sweet love of a mother for her child, and knows that " Nature never said one 
thing and wisdom another." See Cowper's Review of Schools, and see his 
poem upon the receipt of his mother's picture. I subjoin a few instances, 
ancient and modem, of the beneficial effects of maternal education. 

Arete, the daughter of Aristippus, the Cyrenaic philosopher, after her father's 
death, presided over the school, and taught her son, Aristippus, philosophy, 
Diog. Laert. L. ii. in Aristippo. 

lstrina, queen of the Scythians, wife of Aripithis, taught her son the lan- 
guage and learning of the Greeks. Herodotus and Melpomene. 

What heart has not glowed at the memory of the mother of the Gracchi. 

The devout Pilcheria, mother of the emperor Arcadius, when not fifteen years 
of age, governed with discretion. She tended both the moral and intellectual 
education of her son Theodosius. 

Zenobia Suidas, the celebrated queen of Palmyra, was acquainted with the 
Greek, Roman, and Egyptian languages, and instructed her sons Herennianus 
and Timolaus. Pollio Trebellius et Fulg. Lib. viii. cap. iii. 

Amalasunta succeeded, with her son Athalaric, to her father Theodoric, in 
the kingdom of Italy. She educated her son after the Roman manner, and 
reared in him his father's virtues. She was acquainted with all the languages 
that were spoken in the Roman empire. Jo. Magnus, 1. 10. 

Hooker, about the eighteenth year of his age, fell into a dangerous sickness, 
which lasted two months ; all which time his mother, having notice of it, did in 
her hourly prayers as earnestly beg his life of God, as Monica, the mother of 
St. Augustine, did that he might become a true Christian ; and their prayers 
were both so heard as to be granted : which Mr. Hooker would often mention 
with much joy, and as often pray that he might never live to occasion any 
sorrow to so good a mother ; of whom, he would often say, he loved her so 
dearly that he would endeavour to be good even as much for hers as for his own 
sake. Walton's Lives. 

The mother of George Herbert, in the time of her widowhood, being desirous 
to give Edward, her eldest son, such advantages of learning, and other educa- 
tion, as might suit his birth and fortune, and thereby make him more fit for the 
service of his country, did, at his being of a fit age, remove from Montgomery 
Castle with him to Queen's College, and having provided him a fit tutor, she 
commended him to his care, yet she continued there with him, and still kept 
him in a moderate awe of herself, and so much under her own eye, as to see 
and converse with him daily. Walton's Life of George Herbert. 

Professor Gregory, who invented the reflecting telescope, in the twenty-fourth 
year of his age, was instructed by his mother in the elements of mathematics. 

Kant, the celebrated metaphysician, derived in part his devotional spirit from 
the instructions of maternal piety. 

Gray the poet was the only child of his mother who survived. The rest died 
in their infancy from suffocation produced by a fulness of the blood : and he 
owed his life to a memorable instance of the love and courage of his mother, 
who removed the paroxysm which attacked him by opening a vein with her own 
hand. To her exertions it was owing, that when her home was rendered 
unhappy by the cruelty of her husband, our poet was indebted for his education. 
Mason records that Gray seldom mentioned his mother without a sigh. 



XOTE D. 
The early years of the lamented JohnTweddell, 

" Of all that virtue love for virtue loved," 
were passed under the tuition of a most pious and affectionate mother. 

Bishop Watson thus speaks of his mother : " My mother's maiden name was 
Newton : she was a very charitable and good woman, and I am indebted to her 
(I mention it with filial piety) for embuing my young mind with principles of 
religion, which have never forsaken me. Erasmus, in his little treatise entitled 
Antibarbarorum, says, ' that the safety of states depends upon three things — 
upon a proper or improper education of the prince, upon public preachers, and 
upon schoolmasters ; ' and he might with reason have added, upon mothers ; 
for the care of the mother precedes that of the schoolmaster, and may stamp 
upon the rasa tabula of the infant mind, characters of virtue and religion which 
no time can efface." Bishop Watson's Life, p. 7. ed. 4to. 1817. 

The care of the education of Sir William Jones devolved upon his mother, 
who in many respects was eminently qualified for the task. Her character, as 
delineated by her husband with somewhat of mathematical precision, is this, 
that " She was virtuous without blemish, generous without extravagance, frugal 
but not niggard, cheerful but not giddy, close but not sullen, ingenious but not 
conceited, of spirit but not passionate, of her company cautious, in her friend- 
ship trusty, to her parents dutiful, and to her husband ever faithful, loving, and 
obedient." She had naturally a strong understanding, which was improved by 
his conversation and instruction. Under his tuition she became a considerable 
proficient in algebra ; and, with a view to qualify herself for the office of pre- 
ceptor to her sister's son, who was destined to a maritime profession, made her- 
self perfect in trigonometry and the theory of navigation. 

In the plan adopted by Mrs. Jones for the instruction of her son, she pro- 
posed to reject the severity of discipline, and to lead his mind insensibly to 
knowledge and exertion, by exciting his curiosity and directing it to useful 
objects. To his incessant importunities for information on casual topics of 
conversation, which she watchfully stimulated, she constantly replied, " read 
and you will know," a maxim to the observance of which he always acknow- 
ledged himself indebted for his future attainments. By this method his desire 
to learn became as eager as her wish to teach ; and such was her talent of 
instruction and his facility of retaining it, that in his fourth year he was able to 
read distinctly and rapidly any English book. She particularly attended at the 
same time to the cultivation of his memory, by making him learn and repeat 
some of the popular speeches in Shakespeare and the best of Gay's Fables. 

Amoug those mothers who may be recorded as having early succeeded by 
widowhood to the father's place in the charge of education, we may enumerate 
the mothers of St. Peter Celestine ; of Philip Beraldo, the elder ; of Bologna, 
one of the greatest scholars of the fifteenth century ; of Bishop Fisher, and the 
Protestant prelates Cranmer and Parker ; of Papire Masson the historian, and 
of Buchanan the poet : and in a later period, those of our own countrymen, 
Bishop Brownrigg, Dr. Wallis the mathematician, Cowley the poet : and 
abroad, the mothers of Leibnitz ; of Lami, of Florence. 

Bishop Hall thus speaks of his mother, " How often have I blessed the 
memory of those divine passages of experimental divinity which I have heard 
from her mouth ! What day did she pass without a large task of private devo- 
tion, whence she would still come forth with a countenance of undissembled 
mortification. Never any lips have read to me such feeling lectures of piety, 
neither have I known any soul that more accurately practised them ; then her 
own temptations, desertions, and spiritual comforts, were her usual theme. 
Shortly, for I can hardly take off my pen from so exemplary a subject, her life 
and death were saint-like. 

The early letters of the mother of the late Right Hon. William Pitt shew the 
powers of her mind and her affection. 

The comments of John Lovell Edgeworth, in his life ; and of Marmontel, in 
his memoirs, are very interesting on this subject. 

See some valuable observations upon this subject, in Hints for the Improve- 
ment of early Education, Hatchard, 1822, written by Mrs. Hoare. 



NOTES E G 



E. Life, p. ii. 

Note from page 412, Biographia Britannica. The Lady Jane Grey was 
excellently skilled in Greek : and Queen Elizabeth translated several pieces both 
from Greek and Latin. The most remarkable instance, however, of the spirit 
of learning which prevailed was in the family of Sir Anthony Cooke : for all 
his four daughters were perfectly skilled in the learned languages, and his 
second daughter, Anne, wife to the Lord Keeper Bacon, made both a florid 
and exact translation of Bishop Jewell's Apology for the church of England, 
from Latin into English, which was esteemed so useful in its nature, as well as 
so correct in its manner, that in the year 1567 it was published for common use, 
by the special order of Archbishop Parker, with some additions of his own at 
the end. (Strype's Annals, vol. ii. p. 469). There have been many ladies 
remarkable for their learning and their writings, but very few whose works, like 
the Lady Bacon's, were published by authority and commended to public read- 
ing : it was this that stirred the gall of Father Parsons, who has reflected 
bitterly upon this lady (a relation of a conference between Henry IV. of 
France, &c. p. 197) for her performance, without reflecting that his ill language 
redounded more to her reputation than all the praises of her friends. (See 
Mallet's Life of Bacon, 4to.) It was to the great abilities and tender care of 
so accomplished a parent, that her two sons, Anthony and Francis, owed the 
early part of their education. 

" Before I went into Germanic," says Ascham, " I came to Brodegate, in 
Leicestershire, to take my leave of that noble Lady Jane Grey, to whom I was 
exceeding much beholdinge. Her parentes, the duke and the duches, with all 
the houshould, gentlemen and gentlewomen, were hunting in the parke. I 
found her in her chamber, readinge Phsedon Platonis in Greeke, and that with 
as much delite, as some jentlemen would read a merrie tale in Bocase. After 
salutation, and dewtie done, with some other taulke, I asked her, why she 
would leese such pastime in the parke 1 Smiling, she answered me : ' I wisse, 
all their sport in the parke is but a shadoe to that pleasure that I find in Plato. 
Alas ! good folke, they never felt what trewe pleasure ment.' " 

Ascham, who was said to be the best master of the best scholar, speaking 
of his pupil Queen Elizabeth, says : " After dinner I went up to read with 
the Queen's majesty. We read then together in the Greek tongue, as I well 
remember, that noble oration of Demosthenes against Eschines for his false 
dealing in his embassage to King Philip of Macedon." Lord Bacon, in 
speaking of Queen Elizabeth, says : " This lady was indued with learning in 
her sex singular and rare even amongst masculine princes, whether we speak of 
learning or of language : or of science, modern or ancient : divinity or hu- 
manity. And, unto the very last year of her life, she accustomed to appoint 
set hours for reading, scarcely any young student in an university more daily 
or more duly." 

G. Life, p. iii. 

He had not the advantage of a good constitution of body, his father having 
been much afflicted with the gout and stone. Birch's Elizabeth. 

In the Novum Organum he says, " We judge also, that mankind may con- 
ceive some hopes from our example, which we offer, not by way of ostentation, 
but because it may be useful. If any one, therefore, should despair, let him 
consider a man as much employed in civil affairs as any other of his age, a man 
of no great share of health, who must therefore have lost much time ; and yet, in 
this undertaking, he is the first that leads the way, unassisted by any mortal, 
and stedfastly entering the true path that was absolutely untrod before, and 
submitting his mind to things, may thus have somewhat advanced the design." 

Rawley says, " The moon was never in her passion or eclipsed, but he was 
surprized with a sudden fit of fainting, and that though he observed not, nor 
took any previous knowledge of the eclipse thereof." " None of his servants," 



NOTES H 1. 

says Aubrey, " durst appear before him without Spanish leather boots, for he 
would smell the neat's leather, which offended him." " His lordship," says 
Aubrey, " would often drink a good draught of strong beer (March beer) to 
bed-wards, to lay his working fancy to sleep, which otherwise would keep him 
from sleeping great part of the night. I remember Sir John Danvers told me 
that his lordship much delighted in his curious garden at Chelsea, and as he 
was walking there one time he fell down in a swoon. My Lady Danvers 
rubbed his face, temples, &c. and gave him cordial water ; as soon as he came 
to himself, said he, " Madam, I am no good footman." Is not this cheerful- 
ness a proof that the sensation was habitual 1 

H. Life, p. iii. 

Dr. Rawley says, " His first and childish years were not without some mark 
of eminency ; at which time he was endued with that pregnancy and toward- 
ness of wit ; as they were presages of that deep and universal apprehension, 
which was manifest in him afterward : and caused him to be taken notice 
of by several persons of worth and place ; and, especially, by the Queen ; who 
(as I have been informed) delighted much then to confer with him, and to 
prove him with questions : unto whom he delivered himself with that gravity 
and maturity above his years, that her majesty would often term him, the young 
lord keeper." Archbishop Tennison says, " It is observed that in his tender 
years, his pregnancy was such, as gave great indication of his future high 
accomplishments ; insomuch as Queen Elizabeth took notice of him, and called 
him the young lord keeper ; also, that asking him how old he was, though but 
a boy, he answered, that he was two years younger than her majesty's most 
happy reign." 

I. Life, p. ix. 

It appears probable that on this subject, which constantly occupied him, he 
was interested very early in life. There are various tracts extant which are 
rudiments of his Novum Organum, and appear to have been the subject of 
his meditations when a boy. In vol. xi. of this edition, page 478, there is a 
tract entitled Temporis Vartus Masculus sive de Interpretatione Natures. : this was 
first published by Stephens. It is translated, and is published in vol. xv. This 
tract was written when he was a boy, for in a letter to Father Fulgentio, (see 
vol. xii. 203), written after 1622, as he mentions the History of Henry VII. 
which was published in that year, he says, " I remember that about forty years 
ago, I composed a juvenile work about these things, which with great confi- 
dence and a pompous title I called Temporis Partum Maximum." Archbishop 
Tennyson, speaking of this, says, " This was a kind of embryo of the installa- 
tion, and, if it had been preserved, it might have delighted and profited philo- 
sophical readers, who could then have seen the generation of that great work, as 
it were from the first egg of it, and by reference to the tract it will be seen that 
it was sound judgment." There is another tract entitled Temporis Partus Mas- 
culus, sive Instauratio Magna imperii Humani in Universum. This is also 
translated, and is in vol. xv. It was first published by Gruter. By reference 
to this it will appear, that it is a prayer to the Creator : and, by referring 
to the conclusion of the Distributio Operis prefixed to the Novum Organum, 
page 178, vol. ix. it will be seen that it also concludes with a prayer. There 
are various other tracts, which are rudiments of the Novum Organum. See 
vol. i. of this edition in the preface, sect. 5, p. 27. sect. 6, p. 28. sect. 7, and 
sect. 8, p. 31. 

These different tracts will, possibly, elucidate what is said by Dr. Raw- 
ley, who, speaking of the Novum Organum, says, " His book of Instau- 
ratio Magna (which in his own account was the chiefest of his works,) was 
no slight imagination, or fancy of his brain, but a settled and concocted 
notion, the production of many years labour and travel. I myself have seen at 
the least twelve copies of the Instauration, revised year by year one after 



NOTE I. 

another, and every year altered and amended in the frame thereof, till at last it 
came to that model in which it was committed to the press, as many living 
creatures do lick their young ones, till they bring them to their strength of 
limbs." 

The attention of the reader is particularly requested to the extracts (in pages 
xxviii and xxix of preface to vol. i.) and the observations upon universities in 
the Filum Labyrinthi, and in the Novum Organum. 

" Lost, likewise," says Tennison, " is a book which he wrote in his youth, 
he called it (Temporis Partus Maximus) the Greatest Birth of Time : or rather, 
Temporis Partus Masculus, the Masculine Birth of Time. For so Gruter found 
it called in some of the papers of Sir William Boswel. This was a kind of 
embrio of the Instauration : and the fragment, lately retrieved, and now first 
published. But this loss is the less to be lamented, because it is made up with 
advantage, in the second and better thoughts of the author, in the two first parts 
of his Instauration." 

Mr. Mallet, speaking of this treatise, is pleased to deliver himself thus : 
" Though the piece itself is lost, it appears to have been the first outlines of 
that amazing design, which he afterwards filled up and finished, in his grand 
Instauration of the Sciences. As there is not a more amusing, perhaps a more 
useful speculation, than that of tracing the history of the human mind, if I may 
so express myself, in its progression from truth to truth, and from discovery to 
discovery ; the intelligent reader would, doubtless, have been pleased, to see in 
the tract I have been speaking of, by what steps and gradations, a spirit like 
Bacon's advanced in new and universal theory." 

But here seems to lie the difficulty : some writers who have reviewed the 
scattered works and fragments of Lord Bacon have, with great labour and 
industry, endeavoured to bring in this treatise, otherwise styled Of the Interpre- 
tation of Nature, as a part of that great body of philosophy which he had 
framed ; whereas our author himself, speaking of this treatise, tells us, as the 
reader may see above, that it was not a part or portion of his great structure of 
philosophy, but the first sketch or rough draught of the whole. Now I con- 
ceive, that whoever looks into these fragments of the book on the Interpretation 
of Nature, as they stand in the works of our author, and shall afterwards com- 
pare them with the beginning of his Instauration, will not need many argu- 
ments to persuade him, that this conjecture is founded in truth, and that there is 
as much reason to conceive that the great work, just mentioned, rose out of the 
Temporis Partus Masculus, as that the Novum Organum sprung from another 
of the fragments which accompanies this, and is commonly called his Cogitata 
et Visa. If the reader would be told what is the issue, what the advantage of 
this laboured inquiry, he will surely be satisfied with this answer ; that by 
drawing these fragments of the Interpretation of Nature into a good light, it 
appears, that what the honest and candid Tennison thought so fine a sight, the 
generation of Lord Bacon's philosophy from the egg, is still in our power ; and 
what the ingenious and instructive Mr. Mallet most truly observes, the ability 
of reviewing and tracing the author's steps from one discovery in science to 
another, is yet in a great measure with us ; which, to such as rightly apprehend 
Lord Bacon's worth, and have a just conception of the value of his writings, 
will appear somewhat of considerable consequence. I am satisfied, that in 
matters of this nature there is no absolute certainty, and that in the depths of 
Lord Bacon's knowledge, a man of ordinary talents may be very easily lost ; 
but I own at the same time, the thing struck me so strongly, that I could not 
help putting it down, yet with all imaginable submission to the reader, to whose 
service, as I dedicate my labours, I hope (should it be found so) he will the 
more easily pardon my mistake. There are, however, a few circumstances 
more, to which I must desire the reader's attention, and then he will have a 
just notion of Mr. Bacon's frame of mind. While at Gray's Inn, he was 
eagerly engaged in the study and pursuit of his new philosophy, the whole 
scheme of which he had already formed. It was to this he applied his thoughts, 
and this was the great object of his ambition. If he desired or laboured for 
preferment in civil life, it was but with a view to gain thereby the means of 



NOTE K. 

improving and accomplishing his system ; for he made even the most shining 
transactions of his life, but subservient thereto. In a word, the introducing this 
new method of attaining wisdom was his ruling passion, and his great spring of 
action through life. It quickened him in the pursuit of employments ; it con- 
soled him when he met disappointments in that pursuit ; it filled up (most 
agreeably) his few leisure moments when in the zenith of his grandeur ; it 
softened his fall, by proposing a new road to fame and esteem, in which he was 
in no danger of being either imposed on by one set of men, or sacrificed to the 
interests of another. Thus, this was always, and in all conjunctures, his 
leading object, of which he never lost sight ; and as we have already had 
a train of evidence sufficient to convince us, that he conceived something of this 
kind when he was but sixteen, and brought it into some form by that time he 
was twenty-six ; so the remainder of this article will show how warmly he pro- 
secuted this point till death overtook him on the road, when his mind was 
wholly occupied with these speculations. Biog. Brit. 

K. Life, p. xi. 

His observations on universities will be found in the beginning of the second 
part of the Advancement of Learning. The following analysis will exhibit an 
outline of this tract. After having observed upon libraries, and upon the 
teachers, he proceeds to the defects, which he thus enumerates : 

First defect. Colleges are all dedicated to professions. 

If men judge that learning should be referred to action, they judge well ; 
hut in this they fall into the error described in the ancient fable, in ivhich 
the other parts of the body did suppose the stomach had been idle, because it 
neither performed the office of motion, as the limbs do, nor of sense, as the 
head doth ; but yet, notwithstanding, it is the stomach that digesteth and 
distributeth to all the rest : so if any man think philosophy and universality 
to be idle studies, he doth not consider that all professions are from thence 
served and supplied. And this I take to be a great cause that hath hindered 
the progression of learning, because these fundamental knowledges have been 
studied but in passage. For if you will have a tree bear more fruit than it 
hath used to do, it is not any thing you can do to the boughs, but it is the 
stirring of the earth, and putting new mould about the roots, that must 
work it. 

It is injurious to government that there Is not any collegiate education for 
statesmen. 

Second defect. The salaries of lecturers are too small. 

If you will have sciences flourish, you must observe David's military law, 
which was, " That those which stay with the carriage should have equal part 
with those which were in the action." 

Third defect. There are not sufficient funds for providing models, instru- 
ments, experiments, &c. 

Fourth defect. There is a neglect in the governors of consultation, and in 
superiors of visitation, as to the propriety of continuing or amending the esta- 
blished courses of study. 

1. Scholars study too soon logic and rhetoric. 

For minds empty and unfraught with matter, and which have not gathered 
that which Cicero calleth " Sylva" and " supellex," stuff and variety, to 
begin with those arts, (as if one should learn to weigh, or to measure, or to 
paint the wind), doth work but this effect, that the wisdom of those arts, 
v;hich is great and universal, is almost made contemptible, and is degenerate 
into childish sophistry and ridiculous affectation. (See Milton's Treatise on 
Education.) 

2. There is too great a divorce between invention and memory. 



NOTES K- — M. 

Fifth defect. There is a want of mutual intelligence between different uni- 
versities. 
Sixth defect. There is a want of proper rewards for enquiries in new and 
unlaboured parts of learning. 

The opinion of plenty is amongst the causes of want, and the great quan- 
tity of books maketh a shew rather of superfluity than lack : which surcharge, 
nevertheless, is not to be remedied by making no more books but by making 
more good books, which, as the serpent of Moses, might devour the serpents of 
the enchanters. 

L. Life, p. xi. 

Of the importance of general knowledge and general education, Bacon is 
constant in his admonitions. In the entrance of philosophy he says, " Because 
the partition of sciences are not like several lines that meet in one angle ; but 
rather like branches of trees that meet in one stem, which stem for some dimen- 
sion and space is entire and continued, before it break, and part itself into arms 
and boughs ; therefore the nature of the subject requires, before we pursue the 
parts of the former distribution, to erect and constitute one universal science, 
which may be the mother of the rest ; and that in the progress of sciences, a 
portion, as it were, of the common highway may be kept, before we come where 
the ways part and divide themselves." 

The evil which results from want of fixed principles in legislation may be 
seen in any discussion upon improvement of the law, when it cannot escape 
notice how few fixed principles pervade society upon important questions in 
legislation. There is, I may venture to say, scarcely any subject of law, 
upon the principles of which any two eminent lawyers entertain the same 
sentiments. Mention, for instance, in a company of lawyers, imprisonment 
for debt, or usury, or capital punishment, and you will instantly discover the 
want of fixed principles. One will talk of the injured creditor, another of the 
oppressed debtor ; one of the necessity of this power in creditors for the sake of 
commerce ; another that the counting-house has no alliance with the jail. So 
too there has been, for centuries, great conflict of opinion upon the efficacy of 
severe punishment, as there was, for centuries, upon imprisonment for debt. 
So too upon commercial laws ; all proving the truth of Bacon's account of one 
of the signs of false philosophy, " We must not omit that other sign, namely, the 
great disagreement among the ancient philosophers and the differences of their 
schools, which sufficiently shows that their way, from the sense to the understand- 
ing, was not well guarded ; whilst one and the same subject of philosophy , the 
nature of things, was rent and split into so many and such wild errors : and 
although at present the dissensions and disagreements of opinions, as to first prin- 
ciples and entire philosophies, are in a manner extinct, yet such innumerable ques- 
tions and controversies still remain among us, as make it plainly appear that there 
is nothing fixed and stable, either in our present philosophy or the manner of our 
demonstrations." 

M. Life, p. xiii. 

Extract from Lord Bacon's will. And because I conceive there will be 
upon the moneys raised by sale of my lands, leases, goods and chattels, a good 
round surplusage, over and above that which may serve to satisfy my debts 
and legacies, and perform my will; I do devise and declare, that my exe- 
cutors shall employ the said surplusage in manner and form following ; that 
is to say, that they purchase therewith so much land of inheritance, as may 
erect and endow two lectures in either the universities, one of which lectures 
shall be of natural philosophy ; and the science in general thereunto belonging ; 
hoping that the stipends or salaries of the lecturers may amount to two hundred 
pounds a year for either of them ; and for the ordering of the said lectures, and 
the election of the lecturers from time to time, I leave it to the care of my 
executors, to be established by the advice of the lords bishops of Lincoln and 



NOTES N — O. 

Coventry. Nevertheless thus much I do direct that none shall be lecturer (if 
he be English) except he be master of arts of seven years standing, and that he 
be not professed, in divinity, law, or physic, as long as he remains lecturer; 
and that it be without difference whether (he) be a stranger or English ; and I 
wish my executors to consider of the precedent of Sir Henry Savil's lectures for 
their better instruction. 

William Bagwell, in a preface to his Mystery of Astronomy, 1655, tells the 
reader that he had long wished for an opportunity to deposit his work in some 
university or college, and that he found none so acceptable as the erection of 
Sir Francis Bacon's college, intended to be established in Lambeth Marsh, near 
London, a worthy institution for the advancement of learning. See a catalogue 
of royal and noble authors, I think by Walpole, continued by T. Park, article 
Bacon. It is possible that this may have been an attempt by Bushel, his 
admirer, who, if I mistake not, died in Lambeth Marsh. 

N. — New Atlantis. Life, p. xvi. 

The first edition of the new Atlantis was published, in folio, in 1627, at 
the conclusion of the first edition of the Sylva Sylvarum, of which there 
were eleven editions between the years 1627 and 1676, and in each of these 
editions, the new Atlantis will be found. It will be found in vol. ii. of this 
edition, p. 323. The following is the preface : 

TO THE READER. 

"This fable my lord devised, to the end that hee might exhibite therein, a 
modell or description of a college, instituted for the interpreting of nature, and 
the producing of great and marvellous works for the benefit of men ; under the 
name of Salomons House, or the College of the Six Dayes Works. And even 
so farre his lordship hath proceeded, as to finish that part. Certainly, the 
modell is more vast and high than can possibly be imitated in all things ; not- 
withstanding most things therin are within mens power to effect. His lordship 
thought also in this present fable, to have composed a frame of lawes, or of the 
best state or mould of a commonwealth ; but foreseeing it would be a long 
worke, his desire of collecting the naturall historie diverted him, which he pre- 
ferred many degrees before it. This worke of the new Atlantis, (as much as 
concerneth the English edition) his lordship designed for this place ; in regard 
it hath so neere affinitie (in one part of it) with the preceding naturall historie." 

W. Rawley. 

Tennison, speaking of the new Atlantis, says, " Neither do we, here, 
unfitly place the Fable of the New Atlantis : for it is the model of a college to 
be instituted by some king who philosophizeth, for the interpreting of nature and 
the improving of arts. His lordship did (it seems) think of finishing this fable, 
by adding to it a frame of laws, or a kind of Utopian commonwealth ; but he 
was diverted by his desire of collecting the natural history which was first in his 
esteem." 

There is a copy of the New Atlantis in Bushel's Abridgment, the following 
is the title page : New Atlantis, a Work unfinished. Written by the Right 
Honourable Francis, Lord Verulam, Viscount St. Alban. London, printed bu 
Thomas Newcomb, 1659. 

Of the New Atlantis there have been various translations. It was translated 
into French in 1631. It is in 8vo. There is a copy in the British Museum ; 
the title is as follows : L'Atlas Nouveau, De Messire Francois Bacon, Baron de 
Verulam, Vicomte de S. Alban, et Chancelier d'Angleterre. 

Histoire Natvrelle de Mre. Francois Bacon, Baron de Verulam, Vicomte de 
Sainct Alban, et Chancelier d'Angleterre. A Paris, chez Antoine de Sommaville 
et Andre Sovbron, associez, au Palais dans la petite Salle. M.DC.XXXI. Avec 
Privilege du Roy. 

There is another French edition in 1702 : La Nouvelle Atlantide de Francois 
Bacon, etc. Par M. R. A Paris, chez Jean Musier, etc. m.dcc.II. 

It was translated into Latin in 1633 : Nnvus Atlas, opus imperfectum Latine 



NOTE O. 

conscriptum ab Illustri viro Francisco Bacone, de Verulamio, etc. Cum Pruefa- 
tione W. Rawley. Of this edition Tennison says, " This fable of the New 
Atlantis in the Latin edition of it, and in the Frankfort collection, goeth under 
the false and absurd title of Novus Atlas : as if his lordship had alluded to a 
person, or a mountain, and not to a great island, which according to Plato 
perished in the ocean." 

It was translated into Latin by Rawley, and published by him in folio, in the 
year 1638, in his volume containing many other tracts. The following is the 
title : Nova Atlantis Fragmentorum alterum.. Per Franciscum Baconum, 
Baronem de Verulamio, Vice-Comitem S. Albani. Londini, Typis Ioh. Havi- 
land. Prostant ad Insignia Regia in Cozmeterio D. Pauli, apud Iocosam Norton 
et Richardum Whitakerum, 1638. 

There are some works connected with the New Atlantis which ought to be 
noticed. In the year 1660 a work was published, of which the following is the 
title : New Atlantis begun by the Lord Verulam, Viscount St. Albans: and con- 
tinued by R, H. Esquire. Wherein is set forth a Platform of Monarchial Go- 
vernment, with a pleasant intermixture of divers rare Inventions, and wholsom 
Customs, Jit to be introduced into all Kingdoms, States, and Common-Wealths. 
Nunquam Libertas gratior extat quam sub Rege pio. London, printed for John 
Crooke, at the Signe of the Ship in St. PauVs Church Yard, 1660. 

Of this work Tennison says, " This Supplement has been lately made by 
another hand : * a great and hardy adventure, to finish a piece after the Lord 
Verulam's pencil." 

In the year 1676 a work was published, of which the following is the title- 
page : Essays on several important Subjects in Philosophy and Religion. By 
Joseph Glanvill, Chaplain in Ordinary to His Majesty, and Fellow of the R. S. 
Imprimatur, Martii 27, 1675, Thomas Tomkins. London, printed by J. D. for 
John Baker, at the Three Pidgeons, and Henry Mortlock, at the Phoenix, in St. 
Paul's Church Yard, 1676. 

The last essay in this volume is thus entitled : Anti-fanatical Religion and 
Free Philosophy, in a continuation of the New Atlantis, Essay VII. And the 
title opens thus, Essay VII. The Summe of my Lord Bacon's New Atlantis. 

o. 

After he had passed the circle of the liberal arts, his father thought fit to 
frame and mould him for the arts of state ; and for that end sent him over into 
France, with Sir Amyas Paulet, then employed Ambassadour Lieger into 
France ; by whom he was, after a while, held fit to be entrusted with some 
message or advertisement to the Queen ; which having performed with great 
approbation, he returned back into France again, with intention to continue 
for some years there. Rawley. 

That he was sent to France when he was sixteen appears from the following 
fact. Sir Amias Paulet was sent ambassador to France in September, 1576. 
He was succeeded by Sir Edward Stafford, in December, 1578. 

Extract from a letter, dated June 22, 1577. " One year is already spent 
since my departure from you, and yet one year more, and then I will begin to 
hearken for a successor." To Mr. Nicholas Wadham. 

In a letter to the lord keeper, dated September, 1577 : " This quiet time doth 
give me no occasion to trouble your lordship with long letters ; only I must tell 
you, that I rejoice much to see that your son, my companion, hath, by the grace 
of God, passed the brunt and peril of this journey : whereof I am the more 
glad, because, in the beginning of these last troubles, it pleased your lordship to 
refer his continuance with me to my consideration. I thank God these dangers 
are past, and your son is safe, sound, and in good health, and worthy of your 
fatherly favour. And thus, &c. (a) 

. i. .. » , 

* See R. H. conten. of N. Atlantis, Octo. Lon. 1660. 
(a) See Blackburn, vol. i. 



"VOTES Q It. 

Q. Life, p. xvii. 

STATE OF EUROPE. 

This tract is supposed by Mallet to have been the first work written by Lord 
Bacon, and to have been written about the year 1580, when he was between 
nineteen and twenty years of age: — because it states, " that Henry III. of 
France was then thirty years old : now that king began his reign in 1576, at 
the age of twenty-four years, so that Bacon was then nineteen." How far this 
evidence is satisfactory, may be collected from other parts of the same tract. It 
says, " Gregory XIII. of the age of seventy years :" — but Gregory XIII. was 
seventy years old in the year 1572, when he was elected Pope, so that, accord- 
ing to this reasoning, it might be inferred that it was written when Bacon was 
twelve years of age. In another part of the tract it states, " The King of Spain, 
Philip, son to Charles the Fifth, about sixty years of age :" but he was born on 
the 21st of May, 1527, so that he was sixty years old in 1587, when Bacon was 
between sixteen and seventeen years old. — The author of Bacon's Life, in the 
Biographia Britannica, from these different dates, concludes that the tract was 
written at different periods of time, beginning, as he must suppose, when Bacon 
was quite a boy ; but, as it was not necessary for the purposes of this tract that 
the ages of the different monarchs should be ascertained with great precision, it 
is, perhaps, not probable that they were accurately examined, and the only fair 
inference is, that it was written at a very early period of his life.* 

The same author says, " But what is extremely remarkable in this small 
treatise, is the care and accuracy with which he has set down most of the little 
princes in Germany, with the state of their dominions." This minute observa- 
tion, however, extends to all his works : and of all the extraordinary properties 
of Bacon's wonderful mind, his constant observation of what we, in common 
parlance, call trifles, appears to be one of the most extraordinary. He says that 
whoever will not attend to matters because they are too minute or trifling, shall 
never obtain command or rule over nature. The nature of every thing is best 
seen in its smallest portions. The philosopher, while he gazed upwards to the 
stars, fell into the water, but if he had looked down he might have seen the stars 
in the water. The property of the loadstone was discovered in needles of iron, 
and not in bars of iron. He who cannot dilate the sight of his mind, should 
consider whether it is not better for a man in a fair room to set up one great 
light or branching candlestick of lights, than to go about with a small watch- 
candle into every corner. 

R. Life, p. xxii. 

His tract upon Universal Justice was published in 1623, in the treatise De 
Augmentis Scientiarum, and will afterwards be explained. See Note C C 
postea. 

His different works upon practical parts of the law are : 1st. Elements of the 
Common Law, including Maxims of the Law, and the Use of the Law ; 2ndly. 
A Treatise on the Statute of Uses ; 3rdly. A Treatise on the Office of Con- 
stables ; and 4thly. An Account of the Office for Alienations ; the particulars 
of which will be mentioned in the order of time in which they were written. 

He wrote several tractates upon that subject, wherein though some great 
masters of the law did outgo him in bulk and particularities of cases, yet in the 
science of the grounds and mysteries of the law he was exceeded by none. — 
Rawley. 

* The tract says, " D. Antonio, elect King of Portugal, is now in France, 
where he hath levied soldiers, whereof part are embarked, hoping to be restored 
again." 

VOL. XV. 2 



NOTE S. 



S. Life, p. xxii. 

Bacon's love of contemplation may be seen in various parts of his works. In 
a letter to the Lord Treasurer of 21st of March, 1594, he says, This last request 
I find it more necessary for me to make because (though I am glad of her ma- 
jesty's favour, that I may with more ease practise the law, which percase I may 
use now and then for my countenance,) yet to speak plainly, though perhaps 
vainly, I do not think that the ordinary practice of the law, not serving the 
queen in place, will be admitted for a good account of the poor talent that God 
hath given me, so as I make reckoning, I shall reap no great benefit to myself 
in that course. 

In a letter to Essex, dated March 30, 1594, he says : " When I say I 
revolve all this, I cannot but conclude with myself, that no man ever read a 
more exquisite disgrace ; and therefore truly, my lord, I was determined, if 
her majesty reject me, this to do. My nature can take no evil ply ; but I will, 
by God's assistance, with this disgrace of my fortune, and yet with that comfort 
of the good opinion of so many honourable and worthy persons, retire myself, 
with a couple of men to Cambridge, and there spend my life in my studies and 
contemplations without looking back." 

To my Lord of Essex. 

It may please your good Lordship, — I pray God her majesty's weighing be not 
like the weight of a balance, " gravia deorsum, levia sursum." But I am as 
far from being altered in devotion towards her as I am from distrust that she 
will be altered in opinion towards me when she knoweth me better. For myself 
I have lost some opinion, some time, and some means ; this is my account : 
but then, for opinion, it is a blast that goeth and cometh ; for time, it is true, it 
goeth and cometh not ; but yet I have learned that it may be redeemed. For 
mean?, I value that most ; and the rather, because I am purposed not to follow 
the practice of the law : if her majesty command me in any particular I shall 
be ready to do her willing service ; and my reason is only because it drinketh 
too much time, which I have dedicated to better purposes. But even, for that 
point of estate and means I partly lean to Thales' opinion, " that a philosopher 
may be rich if he will." Thus your lordship seeth how I comfort myself; to 
the increase whereof I would fain please myself to believe that to be true which 
my Lord Treasurer writeth, which is, that it is more than a philosopher morally 
can digest ; but without any such high conceit, I esteem it like the pulling out 
of an aching tooth, which I remember when I was a child, and had little phi- 
losophy, I was glad of when it was done. For your lordship, I do think myself 
more beholding to you than to any man ; and I say I reckon myself as a com- 
mon, (not popular but common,) and as much as is lawful to be enclosed as a 
common, so much your lordship shall be sure to have. — Your Lordship's to 
obey your honourable commands more settled than ever. 

In a letter to the Lord Treasurer in 1594, he says, I will use no reason to 
persuade your lordship's mediation but this, that your lordship and my other 
friends shall in this beg my life of the queen ; for I see well the bar will be my 
bier, as I must and will use it rather than my poor estate or reputation shall 
decay ; but I stand indifferent whether God call me or her majesty. Had I 
that in possession which by your lordship's only means against the greatest 
opposition her majesty granted me, I would never trouble her majesty, but 
serve her still voluntarily without pay. 

The following is from the dedication, in 1597, to the first edition of his 
Essays, to his brother who was lame : " I have preferred them to you, that are 
next myself, dedicating them, such as they are, to our love, in the depth 
whereof, I assure you, I sometimes wish your infirmities translated upon myself, 
that her majesty might have the service of so active and able a mind, and I 
might be with excuse confined to these contemplations and studies for which I 
am fittest." 



NOTES S T. 

In a letter to the King, April 1, 1616, he says : 

It may please your most excellent Majesty, — The last day when it pleased your 
majesty to express yourself towards me in favour, far above that I can deserve, 
or could expect, I was surprised by the prince's coming in ; I most humbly 
pray your majesty, therefore, to accept these few lines of acknowledgment. I 
never had great thoughts for my self, farther than to maintain those great 
thoughts which I confess I have for your service. I know what honour is, and 
I know what the times are ; but I thank God with me my service is the prin- 
cipal, and it is far from me, under honourable pretences, to cover base desires, 
which I account them to be, when men refer too much to themselves, especially 
serving such a king, I am afraid of nothing, but that the master of the horse, 
your excellent servant, and myself, shall fall out about this, who shall hold 
your stirrup best ; but were your majesty mounted, and seated without difficul- 
ties and distaste in your business, as I desire and hope to see you, I should " ex 
animo" desire to spend the decline of my years in my studies, wherein also I 
should not forget to do him honour, who besides his active and. politic virtues, 
is the best pen of kings, and much more the best subject of a pen. God ever 
preserve your majesty. Your Majesty's most humble subject, and more and 
more obliged servant. 

To Sir Thomas Bodley. 

Sir, — I think no man may more truly say, with the psalm, Multum incolafuit 
anima mea,* than my self; for I do confess since I was of any understanding, 
my mind hath in effect been absent from that I have*done : and in absence are 
many errors, which I do willingly acknowledge ; and amongst the rest, this great 
one that led the rest ; that knowing myself by inward calling to be fitter to hold 
a book, than to play a part, I have led my life in civil causes ; for which I was 
not very fit by nature, and more unfit by the preoccupation of my mind. 

Tennison says, To the like purpose in a MS. letter to the Lord Chancellor 
Egerton, which I have sometimes perused ; he says : " I am not so deceived in 
myself, but that I know very well ('and I think your lordship is major Corde, 
and in your wisdom you note it more deeply than I can in my self) that in 
practising the law, I play not my best game, which maketh me accept with a 
nisi quid potius, as the best of my fortune, and a thing better agreeable to better 
gifts than mine but not to mine." And it appeareth by what he hath said in a 
letter to the Earl of Essex, that he once thought not to practise in his profes- 
sion. " I am purposed," said he, ** not to follow the practice of the law ; and 
my reason is only because it drinketh too much time, which I have devoted to 
better purposes." 

Upon taking his seat in Chancery, he says, " Only the depth of the three 
long vacations I would reserve in some measure free from business of estate, 
and for studies, arts and sciences, to which in my own nature I am most 
inclined." 

T. Life, p. xxiii. 

The apartments in which Lord Bacon resided are said to be at No. 1, Gray's 
Inn Square, on the north side, one pair of stairs ; I visited them in June 1832. 
They are said to be, and they appear to be in the same state in which they must 
have been for the last two centuries ; handsome oak wainscot and a beautiful 
ornament over the chimney-piece. In the garden there was, till within the last 
three or four years, a small elevation surrounded by trees, called Lord Bacon's 
mount, and there was a legend that the trees were planted by him ; they were 
removed to raise the new building now on the west side of the garden, and they 
stood about three-fourths from the south end. In the books in the Steward's 
Office there are many of Lord Bacon's autographs of his admission, when he 
was a bencher, of the different students. 

* My soul hath been long a sojourner. 



NOTES T — W X Y. 

To Lord Burghley. 

It may please your good Lordship, — I am sorry the joint mask from the four 
inns of court faileth, wherein I conceive there is no other ground of that event 
but impossibility. Nevertheless, because it faileth out that at this time Grey's 
Inn is well furnished of gallant young gentlemen, your lordship may be pleased 
to know that rather than this occasion shall pass without some demonstration of 
affection from the inns of court, there are a dozen gentlemen of Grey's Inn, 
that out of the honour which they bear to your lordship and my Lord Chamber- 
lain, to whom at their last mask they were so much bounden, will be ready to 
furnish a mask, wishing it were in their powers to perform it according to their 
minds. And so for the present I humbly take my leave, resting your Lordship's 
very humble and much bounden, Fr. Bacon. 

Dugdale, in his account of Bacon, says in 42 Eliz. being double reader in 
that house, and affecting much the ornament thereof, he caused that beautiful 
grove of elms to be planted in the walks, which yet remain. Orig. Ju. 272. b. 

I next come to the walks, and of these the first mention that I find is in 40 
Eliz. Mr. Bacon being upon his account made 4 Julii, allowed the sum of vii 1 
xs iiiid laid out for planting elms in them, of which elms some died, as it 
seems ; for at a pension held here, 14 Nov. 41 Eliz. there was an order made 
for a present supply of more young elms, in the places of such as were deceased : 
and that a new rayle and quickset hedge should be set upon the upper long walk, 
at the discretion of the same Mr. Bacon and Mr. Wilbraham ; which being 
done, amounted to the charge of lx vi viiid. as by the said Mr. Bacon's account 
allowed 29 Apr. 42 Eliz. appears. 

V. Life, p. xxiii. 

See Camden, Strype, Dugdale, and the other writers of Elizabeth's reign. 
See Biographica Britannica, title Bacon. 

X. Life, p. xxv. 

It is said that the Queen, upon Spenser presenting some poems to her, ordered 
him a gratuity of an hundred pounds, but that the Lord Treasurer Burleigh ob- 
jecting to it, said with some scorn of the poet, What ! all this for a song 1 The 
Queen replied, Then give him what is reason. Spenser waited for some time, 
but had the mortification to find himself disappointed of the Queen's intended 
bounty. Upon this he took a proper opportunity to present a paper to Queen 
Elizabeth, in the manner of a petition, in which he reminded her of the orders 
she had given, in the following lines : 

I was promised on a time 

To have reason for my rhime, 

From that time unto this season 

I received nor rhyme nor reason. 
This paper produced the desired effect, and the Queen, not without some reproof 
of the treasurer, immediately directed the payment of the hundred pounds she 
had first ordered. Life of Spenser. 

Y. Life, p. xxvi. 

In his apology respecting Lord Essex, he says, It is well known, how I did 
many years since dedicate my travels and studies to the use, and, as I may 
term it, service of my lord of Essex, which I protest before God, I did not, 
making election of him as the likeliest mean of mine own advancement, but out 
of the humour of a man, that ever from the time I had any use of reason, whether 
it were reading upon good books, or upon the example of a good father, or by 
nature, I loved my country more than was answerable to my fortune ; and I 
held at that time my lord to be the fittest instrument to do good to the state, 
and therefore I applied myself to him in a manner which I think happeneth 
rarely among men : for I did not only labour carefully and industriously in that 



NOTES Y Z. 

he set me about, whether it were matter of advice or otherwise, but, neglecting 
the queen's service, mine own fortune, and in a sort my vocation, I did nothing 
but advise and ruminate with myself, to the best of my understanding, propo- 
sitions, and memorials of any thing that might concern his lordship's honour, 
fortune, or service. And when, not long after I entered into this course, my 
brother, Mr. Anthony Bacon, came from beyond the seas, being a gentleman 
whose ability the world taketh knowledge of for matters of state, especially 
foreign, I did likewise knit his service to be at my lord's disposing. 

Z. Life, p. xxvi. 

Sir Francis Bacon to the Lord Treasurer Burghley. 
My Lord, — With as much confidence as mine own honest and faithful devo- 
tion unto your service, and your honourable correspondence unto me and my 
poor estate can breed in a man, do I commend myself unto your lordship. I 
wax now somewhat ancient ; one and thirty years is a great deal of sand in the 
hour-glass. My health, I thank God, I find confirmed, and I do not fear that 
action shall impair it ; because 1 account my ordinary course of study and 
meditation to be more painful than most parts of action are. I ever bear a mind, 
in some middle place that I could discharge, to serve her majesty ; not as a 
man born under Sol that loveth honour ; nor under Jupiter that loveth business, 
for the contemplative planet carrieth me away wholly : but as a man born under 
an excellent sovereign, that deserveth the dedication of all men's abilities. Be- 
sides I do not find in myself so much self-love, but that the greater parts of my 
thoughts are to deserve well, if I were able, of my friends, and namely of your 
lordship ; who being the Atlas of this commonwealth, the honour of my house, 
and the second founder of my poor estate, I am tied by all duties, both of a 
good patriot, and of an unworthy kinsman, and of an obliged servant, to employ 
whatsoever I am, to do you service. Again, the meanness of my estate doth 
somewhat move me : for though I cannot accuse myself, that I am either prodi- 
gal or slothful, yet my health is not to spend, nor my course to get. Lastly, I 
confess that I have as vast contemplative ends, as I have moderate civil ends ; 
for I have taken all knowledge to be my providence ;* and if I could purge it of 
two sorts of rovers, whereof the one with frivolous disputations, confutations, 
and verbosities : the other with blind experiments and auricular traditions and 
impostures, hath committed so many spoils ; I hope I should bring in indus- 
trious observations, grounded conclusions, and profitable inventions and dis- 
coveries ; the best state of that providence.* This, whether it be curiosity, or 
vain glory, or nature, or, if one take it favourably, philanthropia, is so fixed in 
my mind, as it cannot be removed. And I do easily see, that place of any rea- 
sonable countenance doth bring commandment of more wits than of a man's 
own, which is the thing I greatly affect. And for your lordship, perhaps you 
shall not find more strength and less encounter in any other. And if your lord- 
ship shall find now or at any time, that I do seek or affect any place, whereunto 
any that is nearer unto your lordship shall be concurrent, say then that I am a 
most dishonest man. And if your lordship will not carry me on, I will not do 
as Anaxagoras did, who reduced himself with contemplation unto voluntary 
poverty : but this I will do, I will sell the inheritance that I have, and purchase 
some lease of quick revenue, or some office of gain, that shall be executed by 
deputy, and so give over all care of service, and become some sorry book- 
maker, or a true pioneer in that mine of truth, which, he said, lay so deep. 
This which I have writ unto your lordship, is rather thoughts than words, being 
set down without all art, disguising, or reservation : wherein I have done honour 
both to your lordship's wisdom, in judging that that will be best believed of 
your lordship which is truest ; and to your lordship's good nature, in retaining 
nothing from you. And even so, I wish your lordship all happiness, and to 
myself means and occasion to be added to my faithful desire to do you service. 
From my lodging at Gray's Inn. 

* Province. 



NOTES 7, 7, -Z Z A A— B B. 

Z Z. Life, p. xxvii. 

Rawley's Life. — His birth and other capacities qualified him, above others of 
his profession to have ordinary accesses at court, and to come frequently into 
the queen's eye, who would often grace him with private and free communica- 
tion, not only about matters of his profession or business in law, but also 
about the arduous affairs of estate, from whom she received, from time to time, 
great satisfaction ; nevertheless, though she cheered him much with the bounty 
of her countenance, yet she never cheered him with the bounty of her hand ; 
having never conferred upon him any ordinary place, or means of honour or 
profit, save only one dry reversion, of the Register's Office, in the Star Cham- 
ber, worth about 1600L per annum, for which he waited, in expectation, 
either fully or near twenty years ; of which his lordship would say, in Queen 
Elizabeth's time, that it was like another man's ground, buttalling upon his 
house, which might mend his prospect, but it did not fill his barn. Neverthe- 
less, in the time of King James, it fell unto him. 

Dugdale, in his account of Bacon says, In 32 Eliz. he was made one of the 
clerks in council. 

The author of Bacon's life, in the Biographia Britannica, speaking of the 
reversion of the Register's place in the Star Chamber, says, His having the 
reversion of this place, I take to be the reason, why several writers style him 
one of the Clerks of the Privy Council j* for that he had no other employment 
than this under that reign, is very clear from the foregoing passage in Dr. Raw- 
ley's Memoirs, and from his own letters. 

2 Z. Life, p. xxvii. 

In historical collections by Jonson, there is the following preamble to the 
proceedings in this parliament : — A Journal of the Parliamentary Proceedings 
in the lower house, Anno xxv° Eliz. Annoq. Dom. 1592, very laboriously col- 
lected : being chiefly called for consultation and preparation against the ambitious 
designs of the King of Spain ; in which some unusual distastes happened be- 
tween her Majesty and the House, by reason of their intermeddling with her 
Majesties successor to the crown, which she had forbidden. This session begun 
on Monday, February 19, 1592, and ended April 9, 1593. 

A A. Life, p. xxvii. 

Birch's Elizabeth, vol. i. 93. Anthony was member for Wallingford, and 
his brother Francis for Middlesex. Not. Pai-liam. by Browne Willis, LL.D. 
p. 127, 31 edit. London, 1750. He sat in that parliament, which met No- 
vember 19, 1592, as one of the knights of the shire for Middlesex. 

B B. Life, p. xxvii. 

Mr. Speaker, — That which these honourable personages have spoken of their 
experience, may it please you to give me leave likewise to deliver of my common 
knowledge. The cause of assembling all parliaments hath been hitherto for 
laws or monies ; the one being the sinews of peace, the other of war : to one I 
am not privy, but the other I should know. I did take great contentment in 
her majestie's speech the other day, delivered by the Lord Keeper ; how that it 
was a thing not to be done suddenly, or at one parliament, nor scarce a year 
would suffice to purge the statute book, nor lessen it, the volumes of law being 
so many in number, that neither common people can half practise them, nor 
lawyers sufficiently understand them, than the which nothing would tend more 
to the praise of her majesty. The Romans they appointed ten men who were to 
collect or recall all former laws, and to set forth those twelve tables so much of 
all men commended. The Athenians likewise appointed six for that purpose. 
And Lewis the Ninth, King of France, did the like in reforming his laws. — See 
C C, next note. 

* Dugdale 's Baronage, vol. ii. p. 438. 



NOTE C C. 



C C. Life j p. xxvii. 

The suggestions by Lord Bacon upon Improvement of the Law are either 

1st. Tracts upon the improvement of the law. 

2dly. Scattered observations in different parts of his works. 

Lord Bacon's Tracts for the Improvement of the Law are 

1. Certificate touching the Penal Laws. 

2. A Proposition to his Majesty touching the compiling and amendment of 
the Laws of England. 

3. An offer to King James of a Digest of the Laws of England. 

4. Dedication and Preface to his Law Maxims. 

5. Draught of an Act against Usury, and 

6. Ordinance for the Administration of Justice in Chancery. 

7. Justitia Universalis. 

Sir Stephen Procter's Project relating to the Penal Laws. 
In the Harleian manuscripts in the British Museum there is the following- 
memorial, viz. [See MS. Lansd. 486, fol. 21.] 

1st. A Memorial touching the Review of Penal Lawes and the Amend- 
ment of the Common Law.* 
Forasmuch as it was one of his Majesties Bills of Grace That there should be 
certain Commissioners, 12 Lawyers and 12 Gent of experience in the Countrie 
for the Review of penal Lawes and the Repeal of such as are obsolete and 
Snaring, and the Supply where it shall be needful of Lawes more mild and fit 
for the time, &c. And thereupon to prepare Bills for the next Parliament. It 
were now a time for his Majty out of his Royal Authoritie and Goodness to act 
this excellent intent, and to grant forth a Commission accordingly wherein 
besides the excellency of the work in it self, and the pursueing of the intent of 
that Bill of Grace, Two things will follow for his Majesties Honour and repu- 
tation. 

The one that it will beat down the opinion which is Sometime mut- 
tered, That his Maj*y will call no more Parliaments. 

The other that whereas there are Some Rumo rs dispersed that now his 

Majesty, for the help of his wants, will work upon the penal Lawes, the 

people shall see his disposicion is so far from that, as he is in hand to 

abolish many of them . 

There is a second work w ch needeth no Parliament and is one of the rarest 

works of Sovereigne merit which can fall under the Acts of a King. For Kings 

that do reform the Body of their Lawes are not only Reges but Legis-latores, 

and as they have been well called, perpetui Principes, because they reign in 

their Lawes for ever. 

Wherefore for the Common Law of England it is no Text Law, but the Sub- 
stance of it consisteth in the Series and Succession of Judicial Acts from time to 
time which have been set down in the Books, which we term Year Books or 
Reports, so that as these Reports are more or less perfect, so the law itself is 
more or less certain, and indeed better or worse, whereupon a conclusion may 
be made that it is hardly possible to conferr upon this Kingdom a greater bene- 
fit, then if his Maj*T should be pleased that these Books also may be purged and 
reviewed, whereby they may be reduced to fewer Volumes and clearer Resolu- 
tions, which may be done, 

By taking away many Cases obsolete and of no use, keeping a re- 
membrance of some few of them for antiquity sake. 

By taking away many Cases that are merely but iterations, wherein a 
few set down will serve for many. 

By taking away idle Queres which serve but for seeds of uncertainty. 
By abridging and dilucidating Cases tediously or darkly reported. 
By purging away Cases erroneously reported and differing from the 
original verity of the Record. 

* Bacon touching the amendment of Lawes. 



NOTE c e. 

Whereby the Common Law of England will be reduced to a Corae or Digest 
of Books of competent volumes to be studied, and of a nature and content Rec- 
tified in all points. 

Thus much for the time past. 

But to give perfection to this work his Maj^ may be pleased to restore the 
ancient use of Reporters, w ch in former times were persons of great Learning, 
w ch did attend the Courts at Westminster, and did carefully and faithfully 
receive the Rules and Judicial Resolutions given in the King's Courts, and had 
Stipends of the Crown for the same ; w ch worthy institucion by neglect of time 
hath been discontinued. 

It is true that this hath been Supplyed somew 1 of later times by the industry 
of voluntaries as chiefly by the worthy Endeavours of the Lord Dier and the Lo. 
Coke. But great Judges are unfit persons to be Reporters, for they have either 
too little leisure or too much authoritie, as may appear well by those two Books, 
whereof that of my Lo. Dyer is but a kind of note Book, and those of my Lo. 
Coke's hold too much de proprio. 

The choice of the persons in this work will give much life unto it ; the per- 
sons following may be thought on, as men not overwrought with practice, and 
yet Learned and conversant in Reportes and Recordes, There are Six Names, 
whereof three only may suffice according to the three principal courtes of Law, 
The King's Bench, The Common Flees, and The Exchequer. 

Mr. Whitlock, Mr. Hackwell, 

Mr. Noie, Mr. Courtman, 

Mr. Hedley, Mr. Robert Hill. 

The stipend cannot be less than 1001. per annum, which nevertheless were too 
little to men of such Qualitie in respect of Some hindrance it may be to then- 
practice, were it not that it will be accompanied with Credit and expectacion in 
due time of preferment. 

The first notice which I find of this tract is in the Letters and Remains by 
Robert Stephens, 1734. It is not mentioned either by Rawley or by Arch- 
bishop Tennison. 

Observations. This tract was first inserted in any edition of the works of Lord 
Bacon, in the year 1740, in the folio edition, in four volumes, by Mallet. 
Printed for Miller. The following is the title : Appendix containing several 
Pieces of Lord Bacon, not printed in the last edition in four volumes in folio : and 
now published from the original manuscripts in the library of the Right Honour- 
able the Earl of Oxford. This appendix was published separately in folio in 
1760, and is in vol. v. page 362, of this edition. I do not find any manu- 
script of this tract in the Harleian collection, but it is in the Lansdowne MSS. 
No. 236, fol. 198. The same as printed in Stephens, pp. 367—377. 

2. Pr-oposition touching the compiling and amendment of the Laws of England. 
This tract is thus noticed in the Baconiana, with a reference to the Resuscitatio, 
page 271 : " The twelfth is, a Proposition to King James, touching the com- 
piling and amendment of the Laws of England, written by him when he was 
attourney-general and one of the privy-council." It will be found in vol. v. of 
this edition, page 337. The following is a copy of the title : A Proposition to 
His Majesty. By Sir Francis Bacon, Knt. his Majesties Attvrney -General and 
one of his Privy -Councel ; touching the Compiling and Amendment of the Laws 
of England. 

3. An Offer to qvr late Soueraigne King lames of a Digest to be made of the 
Lawes of England. London, printed by John Haviland for Humphrey Robinson , 
1629. It is thus noticed in the Baconiana by Archbishop Tennison : " The 
thirteenth is, An Offer to King James, of a Digest to be made of the Laws of 
England."* It will be found in vol. v. of this edition, page 353. Another 
edition in folio was published in 1671, in the third edition of the Resuscitatio. 
The first edition was published in 1629, in a small 4to. by Dr. Rawley, consist- 
ing of four tracts, of which this is one. 

* In the Miscellan. Works, p. 137, and 2nd part of Resusc. 



NOTE C C. 

4. Dedication to Elements of the Common Law. In his dedication to the 
Queen, and in his preface to the Elements of the Common Law, there are va- 
rious suggestions to the Queen, and observations upon improvement of the law. 
They will be found in vol. xiii. of this edition, page 133. 

5. Justitia Universalis. 

In the year 1605, Lord Bacon expresses his intention, in the advancement of 
learning, to write upon the laws of laws. The passage is as follows : " Not- 
withstanding, for the more public part of government, which is laws, I think 
good to note only one deficience : which is, that all those which have written of 
laws, have written either as philosophers, or as lawyers, and none as statesmen. 
As for the philosophers, they make imaginary laws for imaginary common- 
wealths, and their discourses are as the stars, which give little light, because 
they are so high. For the lawyers, they write according to the states where 
they live, what is received law, and not what ought to be law ; for the wisdom 
of a law-maker is one, and of a lawyer is another. For there are in nature cer- 
tain fountains of justice, whence all civil laws are derived but as streams : and 
like as waters do take tinctures and tastes from the soils through which they run, 
so do civil laws vary according to the regions and governments where they are 
planted, though they proceed from the same fountains. Again, the wisdom of 
a law-maker consisteth not only in a platform of justice, but in the application 
thereof ; taking into consideration, by what means laws may be made certain, 
and what are the causes and remedies of the doubtfulness and incertainty of 
law ; by what means laws may be made apt and easy to be executed, and what 
are the impediments and remedies in the execution of laws ; what influence 
laws touching private right of meum and tuum have into the public state, and 
how they may be made apt and agreeable ; how laws are to be penned and 
delivered, whether in texts or in acts, brief or large, with preambles, or without ; 
how they are to be pruned and reformed from time to time, and what is the best 
means to keep them from being too vast in volumes, or too full of multiplicity 
and crossness ; how they are to be expounded, when upon causes emergent and 
judicially discussed, and when upon responses and conferences touching general 
points or questions ; how they are to be pressed, rigorously or tenderly ; how 
they are to be mitigated by equity and good conscience, and whether discretion 
and strict law are to be mingled in the same courts, or kept apart in several 
courts ; again, how the practice, profession, and erudition of law is to be cen- 
sured and governed ; and many other points touching the administration, and, 
as I may term it, animation of laws. Upon which I insist the less, because I 
purpose, if God give me leave, (having begun a work of this nature in apho- 
risms), to propound it hereafter, noting it in the mean time for deficient. Vol. 
ii. of this edition, page 295. 

Observations. The outline contemplated by Lord Bacon of a treatise on 
Universal Justice is, as it seems, contained in Aphorism 7, in his description 
of a good law published in 1623, in the Treatise de Augmentis. Vol. ix. p. 82. 

Lex bona censeri possit, quae sit 
Intimatione certa ; 
Piaecepto justa ; 
Executione commoda ; 
Cum forma politia; congrua ; et 
Generans virtutem in subditis. 

It probably was his intention to have completed this work, and if not, to leave 
it as a hint to future ages. The part which he has completed is in the first of his 
five divisions. 

The Certainty of Laws. It is written in his favourite style of Aphorisms 
(see de Augmentis, Lib. vi.), in which the Novum Organum is written, in both 
of which there is the reality without the show of method ; the frame is beautiful, 
although the divisions and muscles are not obtruded. 












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NOTE C C. 

Different editions. The first edition was published in the Treatise de Aug- 
mentis, 1623. This was translated in the translation of the Treatise de Aug- 
mentis, by Watts, in 1640. About the year 1646, a translation of this work 
was published in Paris. The following is a copy of the title page : Les Apho- 
rismes du Droit, traduits du Latin de Messire Francois Bacon, grand Chancelier 
d'Angleterre. Par I. Baudoin. A Paris. 

Dedicated a Monsigneur Segrier, Chancelier de France. At the end of the 
privilege to print a translation of Bacon's works, is " Acheve d'imprimer, pour 
le premiere Ibis, ie 20 Decembre, 1646." 

Contents. 

Pages 1---36. Des Lois en general. 

Ce discours est une offre de Chancelier Bacon a son Roy, 
de faire un digest des Loix d'Angleterre. 
36—111. Les Aphorismes du Droit. 
111—130. De Devoir du Juge. 

Ce discours et les suivans sont tire des ouvres polites de 
Tautheur, et ie les ay admistez icy, pour ce qu'il m'ont 
semble propres au sujet. 
130—139. Des requestes et des supplians. 
139— 147. De l'Expedition des Affaires. 
147— -end. Du Conseil. 

There is a copy of this in the British Museum, which I suppose to have been 
written about 1646. In the museum is Historia Vitae et Mortis in French, by 
J. Baudoin, 4to. Paiis, 1647, and in the privilege to print there is the date 1646. 

There is a new translation of this tract in 1733, by Shaw, in his edition of 
Bacon's philosophical works, in 3 vols. 4to. In the year 1806 an edition in 
12mo. was published. The following is a copy of the title page : Franc. Ba- 
conii Exemplum Tractatus de Justitia Universali sive de Fontibus Juris, extractum 
ex ejusdem Auctoris opere de dignitate et augmentis scientiarum. Curante Lawry, 
juris consulto, qui suas notas prefationem que adjecit. Au Depot des Lois Ro- 
maines a Metz, chez Behmer. Van 1806. 

In the year 1822 a 12mo. edition was published in Paris, consisting of the 
Aphorisms in Latin with the notes. The following is a copy of the title page : 
Legum Leges sive Francisci Baconi AnglicE quondam Cancel, tractatus de fonti- 
bus Unhersi Juris per Aphorismos extractum ex ejusdem auctoris opere de digni- 
tate et augmentis Scientiarum Annotationes quasdam subjecit. A. M.J. J. Dupin 
in scholis et curiis Parisiensibus Doctor et Advocatus. Dictabimus igitur quas- 
dam Legum Leges, ex quibus informatio peti possit, quid in singulis legibus bene 
aut perperam positum aut constitutum sit. (Aph. 6.) Parisiis apud Fratres 
Baudouin Typog. Libr. Via de Vaugirard, No. 36. 1822. 

In the year 1823 a translation into English by James Glassford, Advocate, 
was published at Edinburgh. The following is the title page : Exemplum 
Tractatus de Fontibus Juris, and other Latin Pieces of Lord Bacon, translated 
by James Glassford, Esq. Edinburgh, printed for Waugh and Innes, Chalmers 
and Collings, Glasgow ; and Ogle, Duncan and Co. London. 1823. 

Upon this subject Adam Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments concludes 
thus : Systems of positive law, therefore, though they deserve the greatest 
authority, as the records of the sentiments of mankind in different ages and 
nations, yet can never be regarded as accurate systems of the rules of natural 
justice. It might have been expected that the reasonings of lawyers upon the 
different imperfections and improvements of the laws of different countries 
should have given occasion to an inquiry into what were the natural rules of 
justice, independent of all positive institution. It might have been expected 
that these reasonings should have led them to aim at establishing a system of 
what might properly be called natural jurisprudence, or a theory of the general 
principles that ought to run through, and be the foundation of the laws of all 
nations. But though the reasonings of lawyers did produce something of this 
kind, and though no man has treated systematically of the laws of any particular 



NOTE C C. 

country, without intermixing in his work many observations of this sort, it was 
very late in the world before any such general system was thought of, or before 
the philosophy of law was treated of by itself, and without regard to the parti- 
cular institutions of any one nation. In none of the ancient moralists do we 
find any attempt towards a particular enumeration of the rules of justice. 
Cicero in his Offices, and Aristotle in his Ethics, treat of justice in the same 
general manner in which they treat of all the other virtues. In the laws of 
Cicero and Plato, where we might naturally have expected some attempt 
towards an enumeration of those rules of natural equity, which ought to be 
enforced by the positive laws of every country, there is, however, nothing of 
this kind. Their laws are laws of policy, not of justice. Grotius seems to 
have been the first who attempted to give the world any thing like a system of 
those principles which ought to run through, and be the foundation of the laws 
of all nations ; and his treatise of the laws of War and Peace is, perhaps, at 
this day, the most complete work that has yet been given upon this subject. 

This valuable tract is in the treatise De Augmentis, vol. ix. page 82, of this 
edition. 

6. Usury. He prepared the draught of an Act agaiust Usury, which was pub- 
lished in the third edition of the Resuscitatio in 1671, which is in vol. xiii. of 
this edition, page 385, and in his Essays, there is an Essay upon Usury, vol. i. 
of this edition, page 137. 

7. Ordinances in Chancery. These ordinances were published in the court the 
first day of Candlemas term, 1618, and have, from that period, been adopted 
and acted upon in the court. I do not find them noticed either by Rawley or 
Tennison. The following is a publication of this tract : Ordinances made by 
the Right Honourable Sir Francis Bacon, Knight, Lord Verulam, and Viscount 
of St. Albans, being then Lord Chancellor. For the better and more regular Ad- 
ministration of Iustice in the Chancery, to be daily observed saving the Preroga- 
tive of this Covrt. London : Printed for Muthew Walbanke and Lawrence 
Chapman 1642. 

Vol. 2. 170. Ordinances by the Lord Chancellor for the better and more 
regular administration of justice in the Chancery, to be duly observed, saving 
the Prerogative of the Court published in the Court the first day of Candlemas 
Term, 1618. Harleian MSS. They will be found in vol. vii. of this edition, 
page 273. 

Scattered observations in different parts of his works. 



fl. Of I 

i. \2. Of J 
13. Of I 



Dispatch. 
Judicature, 
nnovations. 



1. Essays. 

2. Obstacles to Legal Improvement. 



3. Our duty to assist 
in improvement. 



"1. In general. 

J2. Professions. -{ In Law.- 



"1. Want of Collegiate Education of 
Statesmen. 

^ < 1 . By Politicians. 

.2. Opposition. ^ 2 . By Lawyer.. 



"1. In general. 

2. Merit of Legal Im- 
provement. 

3. Politicians best Legal 
Improvers. 

4. Proper use of Lawyers 
in Legal Improvement. 



Essays. 

Of Dispatch. The first Essay containing any observations appertaining to 
legal improvement, which will be found in vol. i. of this edition, page 83, is 
in his Essay of Dispatch : " Affected dispatch is one of the most dangerous things 
to business that can be: it is like that vMch the physicians call predigestion , or 



NOTE C C. 

hasty digestion ; which is sure to Jill the body full of crudities, and secret seeds of 
diseases: therefore measure not dispatch by the times of sitting, but by the advance- 
ment of the business : and as, in races, it is not the large stride, or high lift, that 
makes the speed ; so, in business, the keeping close to the matter, and not taking of 
it too much at once, procureth dispatch. It is the care of some only to come off 
speedily for the time, or to contrive some false periods of business, because they may 
seem men of dispatch : but it is one thing to abbreviate by contracting, another 
by cutting off; and business so handled at several sittings, or meetings, goeth 
commonly backward and forward in an unsteady manner. I knew a wise man, 
that had it for a by -word, when he saw men hasten to a conclusion, ' Stay a little, 
that we may make an end the sooner.' 

On the other side, true dispatch is a rich thing ; for time is the measure of 
business, as money is of wares ; and business is bought at a dear hand where 
there is small dispatch." 

So, too, upon taking his seat as Chancellor, he said, in his address to the bar : 
" For the third general head of his Majesty's precepts concerning speedy jus- 
tice, it rests much upon myself, and much upon others : yet so, as my procura- 
tion may give some remedy and order to it. For myself, I am resolved that my 
decree shall come speedily, if not instantly, after the hearing, and my signed 
decree speedily upon my decree pronounced. For it hath been a manner much 
used of late in my last lord's time, of whom I learn much to imitate, and some- 
what to avoid ; that upon the solemn and full hearing of a cause nothing is pro- 
nounced in court, but breviates are required to be made ; which I do not dislike 
in itself in causes perplexed. For I confess I have somewhat of the cunctative ; 
and I am of opinion, that whosoever is not wiser upon advice than upon the 
sudden, the same man was no wiser at fifty than he was at thirty. And it was 
my father's ordinary word, ' You must give me time.' But yet I find when 
such breviates were taken, the cause was sometimes forgotten a term or two, 
and then set down for a new hearing, three or four terms after. And in the 
mean time the subject's pulse beats swift, though the chancery pace be slow. Of 
which kind of intermission I see no use, and therefore I will promise regularly 
to pronounce my decree within few days after my hearing ; and to sign my 
decree at the least in the vacation after the pronouncing. For fresh justice is 
the sweetest. And to the end that there be no delay of justice, nor any other 
means-making or labouring, but the labouring of the counsel at the bar. 

Again, because justice is a sacred thing, and the end for which I am called to 
this place, and therefore is my way to heaven ; and if it be shorter, it is never a 
whit the worse, I shall, by the grace of God, as far as God will give me strength, 
add the afternoon to the forenoon, and some fourth night of the vacation to the 
term, for the expediting and clearing of the causes of the court ; only the depth of 
the three long vacations I would reserve in some measure free from business of 
estate, and for studies, arts and sciences, to which in my own nature I am most 
inclined. 

There is another point of true expedition, which resteth much in myself, and 
that is in my manner of giving orders. For I have seen an affectation of dis- 
patch turn utterly to delay at length : for the manner of it is to take the tale out 
of the counsellor at the bar his mouth, and to give a cursory order, nothing tend- 
ing or conducing to the end of the business. It makes me remember what I 
heard one say of a judge that sat in chancery ; that he would make forty orders 
in a morning out of the way, and it was out of the way indeed ; for it was 
nothing to the end of the business : and this is that which makes sixty, eighty, 
an hundred orders in a cause, to and fro, begetting one another ; and like Pene- 
lope's web, doing and undoing. But I mean not to purchase the praise of 
expeditive in that kind ; but as one that have a feeling of my duty, and of the 
case of others. My endeavour shall be to hear patiently, and to cast my order 
into such a mould as may soonest bring the subject to the end of his journey. 

As for delays that may concern others, first the great abuse is, that if the 
plaintiff have got an injunction to stay suits at the common law, then he will 
spin out his cause at length. But by the grace of God I will make injunctions 
but an hard pillow to sleep on ; for if 1 find that he prosecutes not with effect, 



NOTE C C. 

he may perhaps, when he is awake, find not only his injunction dissolved, but 
his cause dismissed." 

The caution of an anxious judge, in avoiding hasty decision, may be seen in 
the following anecdote respecting Chancellor D'Aguesseau : " The only fault 
imputed to D'Aguesseau was dilatoriness of decision. We should hear his own 
apology. The general feeling of the public on this head, was once respectfully 
communicated to him by his son : ' My child,' said the Chancellor, * when you 
shall have read what I have read, seen what I have seen, and heard what I have 
heard, you will feel, that if on any subject you know much, there may be also 
much that you do not know, and that something, even of what you know, may 
not at the moment be in your recollection. You will then, too, be sensible of 
the mischievous and often ruinous consequences of even a small error in a deci- 
sion ; and conscience, I trust, will then make you as doubtful, as timid, and 
consequently as dilatory as I am accused of being." 

The nature of dispatch, as it is called, in the administration of justice, may 
be seen in the following translation by my dear friend, Samuel Tayler Coleridge : 
The way of ancient ordinance, though it winds, 
Is yet no devious way. Straight forward goes 
The lightning's path, and straight the fearful path 
Of the cannon-ball. Direct it flies and rapid, 
Shattering that it may reach, and shattering what it reaches. 
My son ! the road the human being travels, 
That on which blessing comes and goes, doth follow 
The river's course, the valley's playful windings 
Curves round the corn-field and the hill of vines, 
Honouring the holy bounds of property 

there exists 

An higher than the warrior's excellence. 

Wallenstein. 

Of Judicature. The next essay, which contains observations upon the ad- 
ministration or improvement of justice, is his Essay on Judicature, which will 
be found in vol. i. page 179. It contains most valuable observations : 1st. in 
general. 2nd. In particular. 

1. As to the parties. 3. The officers. 

2. The advocates. 4. The sovereign. 

I must content myself with referring to the essay, and the following Observa- 
tions in the Edinburgh Review upon Bacon's Essay on Judicature, April, 1830. 
** The bench of Scotland contains bright-names ; men, under whom the duty of 
carrying judicial reformation into practice has as favourable a prospect as devo- 
tion to the cause, and great legal accomplishment, can ever give it. The bar, 
besides professional learning and talent, is as splendidly adorned by general 
literature and by public virtue as any bar upon earth. Criticisms have been 
made on the manner of both. We cannot venture to say how far either the cen- 
sure or the praise of these criticisms is just. Probably both, at times. They 
must not be judged of merely by a standard taken from the accidental fashion or 
custom of any other place, but by their approximation to, or recession from, the 
things that form the universal excellences of the judicial manner. In a well 
regulated place of justice, the court room is orderly and noiseless. The bench 
attends ; or appears to do so. When it does not, the failure neither proceeds 
from indifference nor from impatience. There is much consultation before judg- 
ment ; little conversation during debate. The judges recollect, that the vices of 
counsel must always be generated by themselves, because they are only prac- 
tised from their supposed influence with the bench, and from seeing that the 
opposite virtues fail. The bar venerates good taste, the only corrective of the 
defects naturally connected with the exercise of that profession. It therefore 
grudges the laurels that are sometimes bestowed by the ignorant on certain 
vulgar qualities, such as pertinacity or vehemence, which, though they may 
accompany success, can never, in a right court, be the cause of it. On ordinary 
occasions, when there is no call for a higher flight, it appreciates brevity, calm- 



NOTE C C. 

ness, and sense ; virtues so essential amidst the bustle and distraction of legal 
war, that their presence renders even honesty more powerful, while their absence 
makes learning useless. To both bench and bar, in Scotland and everywhere 
else, we strongly recommend the attentive and repeated study of Bacon's little 
Essay (scarcely three pages) on Judicature. It is a discourse which ought not 
merely to be suspended over the gate, but engraven on the heart, of every court 
of justice." 

There are some observations, in his Essay upon Innovations, applicable to 
the improvement of law as to all improvements. 

Want of Collegiate Education of Statesmen. Lord Bacon seems to have been 
deeply impressed with the conviction, that the want of a collegiate education of 
statesmen was the fundamental cause of the little progress that was made in 
sound legislation. See ante, Note K. 

There is an observation of the same tendency by Lord Bolingbrook, who 
says : "I might instance, in other professions, the obligations men lie under of 
applying themselves to certain parts of history, and I can hardly forbear doing 
it in that of the law ; in its nature the noblest and most beneficial to mankind, 
in its abuse and abasement the most sordid and the most pernicious. A lawyer 
now is nothing more, I speak of ninety-nine in an hundred at least, to use some 
of Tully's words, nisi leguleius quidam cautus, et acutus praeco actionum, cantor 
formularum, auceps syllabarum. But there have been lawyers that were orators, 
philosophers, historians : there have been Bacons and Clarendons, my lord. 
There will be none such any more, till in some better age, true ambition or the 
love of fame prevails over avarice ; and till men find leisure and encouragement 
to prepare themselves for the exercise of this profession, by climbing up to the 
* vantage ground,' so my lord Bacon calls it, of science ; instead of grovelling 
all their lives below, in a mean but gainful application to all the little arts of 
chicane. Till this happen, the profession of the law will scarce deserve to be 
ranked among the learned professions : and whenever it happens, one of the 
vantage grounds to which men must climb, is metaphysical, and the other his- 
torical knowledge. They must pry into the secret recesses of the human heart, 
and become well acquainted with the whole moral world, that they may discover 
the abstract reason of all laws : and they must trace the laws of particular 
states, especially of their own, from the first rough sketches to the more perfect 
draughts ; from the first causes or occasions that produced them, through all the 
effects, good and bad, that they produced." 

Increased importance in the present Time of a Collegiate Education of States- 
men. It may, perhaps, be deemed important to consider whether, in the present 
times, when knowledge is making such rapid progress through all the middle 
classes of society, these lamentations expressed by Lord Bacon and Milton are 
not most peculiarly deserving consideration ; whether, when the middle classes 
of society are rising, they can be restrained or distance be preserved, unless 
there is a proportional elevation in the higher classes 1 

Opposition to Improvement by Politicians. Lord Bacon, when enumerating 
the objections by politicians to the advancement of learning, says, " It is 
objected by politicians that learning doth mar and pervert men's dispositions for 
matter of government and policy ; which the study of arts makes either too 
curious by variety of reading ; or too peremptory by the strict rigour of rules ; 
or too overweening, by reason of the greatness of examples ; or too incompatible 
with the times, by reason of the dissimilitude of examples ; or at least it doth 
divert and alienate men's minds from business and action, instilling into them a 
love of leisure and privateness." He then enters minutely into an examination 
of these objections. See vol. ii. page 16. 

Objections by Lawyers to Improvement of the Law. In his proposition touch- 
ing the compiling and amendment of the laws of England, he states five objec- 
tions which will be made by lawyers to improvement of the law. They are as 
follows : 

1 . Reform is needless. 

2. It is an innovation. 

3. More harm than good will be done. 



NOTE C C. 

4. It will be better to codify. 

5. It will compel lawyers to study new law. 

These objections he separately and minutely examined. See vol. v. p. 343. 

Duty of Men in contemplative and active Life to unite in Improvement. 

The fourth book of the Treatise " De Augmentis " thus opens : " Si quis me, 
Rex optime, ob aliquid eorum quae proposui, aut deinceps proponam, impetat 
aut vulneret (praeterquam quod intra praesidia Majestatis tuae tutus esse de- 
beam), sciat is se contra morem et disciplinam militiae facere. Ego enim, 
buccinator tantum, pugnam non ineo ; unus fortasse ex iis de quibus Homerus, 

Xaipere KrjpvKSQ, Aioq ayyeXoi r]8e Kai avdpoov : 

hi enim inter hostes, etiam infensissimos et acerbissimos, ultro citroque inviolati 
ubique commeabant. Neque vero nostra buccina homines advocat et excitat, 
ut se mutuo contradictionibus proscindant, aut secum ipsi pr allien tur et digla- 
dientur; sed potius ut pace inter ipsos facta, conjunctis viribus se adversus 
naturam rerum comparent, ejusque edita et munita capiant et expugnent, atque 
fines imperii humani (quantum Deus Opt. Max. pro bonitate sua indulserit) 
proferant." 

And in some part of his works, but I do not immediately recollect where, he 
says, that " will indeed dignify and exalt knowledge, if contemplation and 
action may be more nearly and strongly conjoined and united together, than 
they have been : a conjunction like unto that of the two highest planets, Saturn 
the planet of rest and contemplation, and Jupiter the planet of civil society and 
action." 

Duty of Lawyers to assist in Improvement of the Law, In his proposition for 
a compilation of the law, he says, " Your Majesty, of your favour having made 
me privy counsellor ; and continuing me in the place of your attorney-general, 
(which is more than was these hundred years before), I do not understand it to 
be, that by putting off the dealing in causes between party and party, I should 
keep holy-day the more : but that I should dedicate my time to your service, 
with less distraction. Wherefore in this plentiful accession of time which I 
have now gained, I take it to be my duty ; not only to speed your command- 
ments and the business of my place, but to meditate, and to excogitate of 
myself, wherein I may best by my travels, derive your virtues to the good of 
your people, and return their thanks and increase of love to you again. And 
after I had thought of many things, I could find in my judgment, none more 
proper for your majesty as a master, nor for me as a workman, than the reducing 
and recompiling of the laws of England." 

To the same effect, in his Preface to the Elements of the Common Law, he 
says : " I hold every man a debtor to his profession ; from the which, as men 
of course do seek to receive countenance and profit, so ought they of duty to 
endeavour themselves, by way of amends, to be a help and ornament thereunto. 
This is performed in some degree by the honest and liberal practice of a pro- 
fession, when men shall carry a respect not to descend into any course that is 
corrupt and unworthy thereof, and preserve themselves free from the abuses 
wherewith the same profession is noted to be infected ; but much more is this 
performed if a man be able to visit and strengthen the roots and foundation of 
the science itself; thereby not only gracing it in reputation and dignity, but 
also amplifying it in perfection and substance. Having, therefore, from the 
beginning, come to the study of the laws of this realm, with a desire no less, 
if I could attain unto it, that the same laws should be the better for my indus- 
try, than that myself should be the better for the knowledge of them ; I do not 
find that, by mine own travel, without the help of authority, I can in any kind 
confer so profitable an addition unto that science, as by collecting the rules and 
grounds dispersed throughout the body of the same laws." 

The same grateful feeling is expressed by Sir Edward Coke, who says, " if 
this or any other of my works may, in any sort, by the goodness of Almighty 
God, who hath enabled me hereunto, tend to some discharge of that great obli- 
gation of duty wherein I am bound to my profession, I shall reap some fruits 



NOTE C C. 

from the tree of life, and I shall receive sufficient compensation for all my 
labours." 

Merit of legal Improvement. In his Proposition for a Compilation of the Law, 
he says, " Your majesty is a king blessed with posterity ; and these kings sort 
best with acts of perpetuity, when they do not leave them instead of children, 
but transmit both line and merit to future generations. You are a great master 
in justice and judicature, and it were pity that the fruit of that virtue should 
die with you. Your majesty also reigneth in learned times ; the more in regard 
of your own perfections and patronage of learning ; and it hath been the mishap 
of works of this nature, that the less learned time hath wrought upon the more 
learned ; which now will not be so. As for my self the law is my profession, 
to which I am a debtor. Some little helps T may have of other learning, which 
may give form to matter ; and your majesty hath set n e in an eminent place, 
whereby in a work, which must be the work of many, I may the better have 
coadjutors. For the dignity of the work, I know scarcely where to find the 
like ; for surely that scale, and those degrees of sovereign honour are true, and 
rightly marshalled. First, the founders of estates, then the lawgivers, then the 
deliverers and saviours, after long calamities ; then the fathers of their countries, 
which are just and prudent princes; and lasity conquerors, which honour is not 
to be received amongst the rest ; except it be where there is an addition of more 
country and territory to a better government than that was of the conquered. 

Dedication to Elements of the Common Law. " To her sacred Majesty. I do 
here most humbly present and dedicate to your sacred majesty a sheaf and clus- 
ter of fruit of the good and favourable season, which, by the influence of your 
happy government, we enjoy ; for if it be true that silent leges inter arma, it is 
also as true, that your majesty is, in a double respect, the life of our laws , 
once, because without your authority they are but liiera mortua ; and again, 
because you are the lift; of our peace, without which laws are put to silence. 
And as the vital spirits do not only maintain and move the body, but also con- 
tend to perfect and renew it, so your sacred majesty, who is anima legis, doth 
not only give unto your laws force and vigour, but also hath been careful of 
their amendment and reforming ; wherein your majesty's proceeding may be 
compared, as in that part of your government, for if your government be con- 
sidered in all the parts, it is incomparable, with the former doings of the most 
excellent princes that ever have reigned, whose study altogether hath been 
always to adorn and honour times of peace with the amendment of the policy of 
their laws. Of this proceeding in Augustus Caesar the testimony yet remains. 

Pace data terris, animum ad civilia vertit 
Jura suum ; legesque tulit justissimus aucior. 

Hence was collected the difference between gesta in armis and acta in toga, 
whereof he disputeth thus : 

Ecquid est, quod tarn proprie dici potest actum ejus qui togatus in repuhlica 
cum potestate imperioque versatus sit quam lei? quaere acta Gracchi? leges Sem- 
pronii proferantur. Qu<zre Syllcz : Cornelia? Quid? Cn. Pom. tertius cousu- 
latus in quihus actis consistet? nempe in legihus : a Ccesare ipso si qucereres quid- 
nam egisset in urbe, et in toga : * leges multas se responderet T et prctclaras tulisse. 

The same desire long after did spring in the emperor Justinian, being rightly 
called ultimus imperutorum Romanorum , who, having peace in the heart of his 
empire, and making his wars prosperously in the remote places of his dominions 
by his lieutenants, chose it for a monument and honour of his government, to 
revise the Roman laws, from infinite volumes and much repugnancy, into one 
competent and uniform corps of law ; of which matter himself doth speak glo- 
riously, and yet aptly calling it, proprium et sanctissimum templumjustitice, con- 
secration: a work of great excellency indeed, as may well appear, in that 
France, Italy, and Spain, which have long since shaken off the yoke of the 
Roman empire, do yet nevertheless continue to use the policy of that law : but 

* Phil. i. c. 7. 

VOL. XV. 3 



NOTE C C. 

more excellent had the work been, save that the more ignorant and obscure time 
undertook to correct the more learned and flourishing time. To conclude with 
the domestical example of one of your majesty's royal ancestors : King Ed- 
ward I. your majesty's famous progenitor, and the principal lawgiver of our 
nation, after he had in his younger years given himself satisfaction in the glory 
of arms, by the enterprise of the Holy Land, and having inward peace, other- 
wise than for the invasions which himself made upon Wales and Scotland, parts 
far distant from the centre of the realm, he bent himself to endow his state with 
sundry notable and fundamental laws, upon which the government hath ever 
since principally rested. Of this example, and others the like, two reasons may 
be given ; the one, because that kings, which, either by the moderation of their 
natures, or the maturity of their years and judgment, do temper their mag- 
nanimity with justice, do wisely consider and conceive of the exploits of ambi- 
tious wars, as actions rather great than good ; and so, distasted with that course 
of winning honour, they convert their minds rather to do somewhat for the better 
uniting of human society, than for the dissolving or disturbing of the same. 
Another reason is, because times of peace, for the most part drawing with them 
abundance of wealth and finesse of cunning, do draw also, in further conse- 
quence, multitude of suits and controversies, and abuses of laws by evasions 
and devices; which inconveniences in such time growing more general, do 
more instantly solicit for the amendment of laws to restrain and repress them. 

Your majesty's reign having been blest from the highest with inward peace, 
and falling into an age wherein, if science be increased, conscience is rather 
decayed ; and if men's wits be great their wills be greater ; and wherein also 
laws are multiplied in number, and slackened in vigour and execution; it was 
not possible but that not only suits in law should multiply and increase, whereof 
a great part are always unjust, but also that all the indirect courses and prac- 
tices to abuse law and justice should have been much attempted and put in ure, 
which no doubt had bred greater enormities, had they not, by the royal policy 
of your majesty, by the censure and foresight of your council table and star- 
chamber, and by the gravity and integrity of your benches, been repressed and 
restrained : for it may be truly observed, that, as concerning frauds in con- 
tracts, bargains, and assurances, and abuses of laws by delays, covins, vexa- 
tions, and corruptions in informers, jurors, ministers of justice, and the like, 
there have been sundry excellent statutes made in your majesty's time, more in 
number, and more politic in provision, than in any your majesty's predecessors' 
times." 

In other parts of his works he states his opinions as to the persons who are 
the best legal reformers, viz. 

Philosophers not good Improvers. « " T " 

1 ° r (2. Lawyers. 

Politicians best Improvers. 

In his tract on Justitia Universalis, in the treatise De Augmentis, vol. ix. 
he says: " Restat jam desideratum alterum ex iis, quae posuimus, duobus ; 
nimirum, de Justitia Universali, sive de Fontibus Juris. 

Qui de legibus scripserunt, omnes vel tanquam philosophi, vel tanquam juris- 
consulti, argumentum illud tractaver.unt. Atque philosophi proponunt multa 
dictu pulcra, sed ab usu remota. Jurisconsulti autem, suae quisque patriae 
legum (vel etiam Romanarum, aut pontificiarum)' placitis obnoxii et addicti, 
judicio sincero non utuntur, sed tanquam e vinculis sermocinantur. Certe cog- 
nitio ista ad viros civiles proprie spectat ; qui optime norunt quid ferat societas 
humana, quid salus populi, quid aequitas naturalis, quid gentium mores, quid 
rerumpublicarum formae diversae ; ideoque possint de legibus ex principiis et 
praeceptis, tarn aequitatis naturalis quam politices, decernere. Quamobrem id 
nunc agatur, ut fontes justitiae et utilitatis publicae petantur, et in singulis juris 
partibus character quidam et idea justi exhibeatur, ad quam particularium reg- 
norum et rerumpublicarum leges probare, atque inde emendationem moliri quis- 
que, cui hoc cordi erit et curae, possit. Hujus igitur rei, more nostro, exemplum 
in uno titulo proponemus." 



NOTE C C. 

In his notice of universal justice, in the Advancement of Learning, he says : 
" For the more public part of government, which is laws, I think good to note 
only one deficience ; which is, that all those that have written of laws have 
written either as philosophers or lawyers, and none as statesmen. As for the 
philosophers, they make imaginary laws for imaginary commonwealths, and 
their discourses are as the stars, which give little light, because they are so high. 
For the lawyers, they write according to the states where they live ; what is 
received law, and not what ought to be law ; for the wisdom of a law-maker is 
one, and of a lawyer is another. For there are in nature certain fountains of 
justice, whence all civil laws are derived but as streams ; and, like as waters 
do take tinctures and tastes from the soils through which they run, so do civil 
laws vary according to the regions and governments where they are planted, 
though they proceed from the same fountains. Again, the wisdom of a law- 
maker consisteth not only in a platform of justice, but in the application 
thereof; taking into consideration by what means laws may be made certain, 
and what are the causes and remedies of the doubtfulness and incertainty of 
law ; by what means law may be made apt and easy to be executed, and what 
are the impediments and remedies in the execution of laws ; what influence laws 
touching private right of meum and tuum have into the public state, and how 
they may be made apt and agreeable ; how laws are to be penned and delivered, 
whether in texts or in acts, brief or large, with preambles or without ; how they 
are to be pruned and reformed from time to time, and what is the best means to 
keep them from being too vast in volumes, or too full of multiplicity and cross- 
ness ; how they are to be expounded, when upon causes emergent, and judi- 
cially discussed ; and when upon responses and conferences touching general 
points or questions ; how they are to be pressed, rigorously or tenderly ; how 
they are to be mitigated by equity and good conscience, and whether discretion 
and strict law are to be mingled in the same courts, or kept apart in several 
courts. Again, how the practice, profession, and erudition of law is to be cen- 
sured and governed ; and many other points touching the administration, and, 
as I may term it, animation of laws. Upon which I insist the less, because I 
propose, if God give me leave, having begun a work of this nature in aphorisms, 
to propound it hereafter, noting it in the meantime for deficient." Vol. ii. p. 296. 

The reasons why men of learning are supposed not to be good reformers, may 
be collected from the objections by politicians to the advancement of learning, 
who think that the discourses of the philosopher are like the stars which give 
little light, because they are so high. The politician says learning doth mar 
and pervert men's dispositions for matter of government and policy, in making 
them too curious and irresolute by variety of reading, or too peremptory or posi- 
tive by strictness of rules and axioms, or too immoderate and overweening by 
reason of the greatness of examples, or too incompatible and differing from the 
times, by reason of the dissimilitude of examples. Vol. ii. p. 14. 

Although Lord Bacon in these observations sanctions the common but erro- 
neous opinion that philosophers are Utopian ; that they are so ignorant of human 
nature, as, by hasty generalization, to suppose that all men are immediately 
capable of the same perfection, he does not so suppose in another part of the 
Advancement of Learning, when speaking of the objections to learning from the 
manners of learned men. See vol. ii. page 15. 

If Lord Bacon is right in supposing that, in his time lawyers were not the 
best improvers, it may be well deserving consideration, whether the supposition 
is not increased in the present times. Lord Bacon, when enumerating the 
objections by politicians to the advancement of learning, says, " that the 
advancement of learning has a tendency to divert men of intellect from active 
life." His words are, " it doth divert men's travels from action and business, 
and bringeth thern to a love of leisure and privateness ; and that it doth bring 
into states a relaxation of discipline, whilst every man is more ready to argue, 
than to obey and execute." (a) If this is true, it will, perhaps, follow, that as 
society advances in knowledge, the bar will not abound with men of the greatest 

(a) Vol. ii. p. 14. 



"NOTE C C. 

attainment. The pleasures of intellect being greater than the pleasures of am- 
bition or of wealth. Cicero says : " Sed quid ego haec, quae cupio deponere, 
et toto animo atque omni cura <pi\o(ro(paZv 1 Sic, inquam, in animo est ; vellem 
ab initio." To the same effect Mr. Burke says, " Indeed, my lord, I greatly 
deceive myself, if, in this hard season, I would give a peck of refuse wheat for 
all that is called fame and honour in the world. This is the appetite but of a 
few." So says Mr. Burke ; but, as knowledge advances, it may, unfortu- 
nately for activity in government, be the appetite of many ; and if so, the com- 
mon ranks of life will not be filled with the ablest men. William Wordsworth, 
Robert Southey, Mr. Robert Smith, Sir James Mackintosh, and Sir William 
Grant, are instances now before me of eminent men who have lately shrunk 
from their laborious occupations; and when the present mass of law is con- 
sidered ; when it is remembered that since the year 1800 there have been thirty 
volumes of statutes, and perhaps one hundred volumes of reports, the profes- 
sional prospects to men who know the shortness and value of life, will not in 
our times be considered attractive by men of the greatest attainment. 

Lord Bacon attempts to answer this objection ; whether satisfactorily or not 
is another question. He says : " And that learning should take up too much 
time or leisure : I answer ; the most active or busy man, that hath been or can 
be, hath, no question, many vacant times of leisure, while he expecteth the 
tides and returns of business (except he be either tedious and of no dispatch, or 
lightly and unworthily ambitious to meddle in things that may be better done 
by others) : and then the question is but, how those spaces and times of leisure 
shall be filled and spent ; whether in pleasures or in studies ; as was well 
answered by Demosthenes to his adversary iEsehines," that was a man given to 
pleasure, and told him that his orations did smell of the lamp: ' Indeed,' said 
Demosthenes, ' there is a great difference between the things that you and I do 
by lamp-light.' So as no man need doubt that learning will expulse business ; 
but rather it will keep and defend the possession of the mind against idleness 
and pleasure, which otherwise at unawares may enter, to the prejudice of 
both." (a) 

No man knew better, none perhaps so well, as Lord Bacon, that intellectual 
pleasures are the most exquisite pleasures which an intellectual being is capable 
of enjoying. He expresses this in various parts of his works. "God hath 
made all things beautiful or decent in the true return of their seasons ; also he 
hath placed the world in man's heart : yet cannot man find Q\xt the work which 
God worketh from the beginning to the end, declaring, not obscurely, that God 
hath framed the mind of man as a mirror or glass, capable of the image of the 
universal world, and joyful to receive the impression thereof, as the eye joyeth 
to receive light, and not only delighted in beholding the variety of things, and 
vicissitudes of times, but raised how to find out and discover the ordinances and 
decrees which throughout all these changes are infallibly observed." (6) 

This being the case, what prospect is there that men of the greatest attain- 
ments will " delve in law's laborious mine." 

Mr. C. Butler, in his Essay on the Life of Chancellor de l'Hopital, says, 
" When a magistrate, after the sittings of the court, returned to his family, he 
had little temptation to stir again from home. His library was necessarily his 
sole resource ; his books his only company. To this austere and retired life, 
we owe the Chancellor de l'Hopital, the President de Thou, Pasquier, Loisel, 
the Pithous, and many other ornaments of the magistracy." I am afraid this 
is not now to be expected in England. 

Proper use of Lawyers in legal Improvement. Although lawyers are not per- 
haps the best improvers of laws, their use in expressing intended improvements 
cannot be doubted. " If the lawyer, instead of abounding with knowledge, 
might be described as he was described two thousand years since, ' leguleius 
quidam cautus, et acutus praeco actionum, cantor formularum, auceps sylla- 
barum,' these very properties would be made subservient to the common good 
in modelling the laws which wisdom suggests." 

(«) Vol.ii. p. 21. (b) Vol.ii. p. 9. 



NOTE C C. 

The duties of a lawyer, with respect to improvement of the law, may, pos- 
sibly, be thus stated, after the manner of Fuller : 

1. Having shared the fruits he endeavours to strengthen the root and founda- 
tion of the science of law. 

2. He resists injudicious attempts to alter the law. 

Knowing that zeal is more frequent than wisdom, that the meanest trade is 
not attempted without an apprenticeship, but every man thinks himself qualified 
by intuition for the hardest of all trades, that of government, he is ever ready 
to resist crude proposals for amendment. His maxim is, " To innovate is not 
to reform." 

Lord Bacon, zealous as he was for all improvement ; believing, as he did, in 
the omnipotence of knowledge, that " the spirit of man is as the lamp of God, 
wherewith he searcheth the inwardness of all secrets ;" and branding the idola- 
ters of old times as a scandal to the new — says, " It is good not to try experi- 
ments in states, except the necessity be urgent, or the utility evident : and well 
to beware that it be the reformation that draweth on the change, and not desire 
of change that pretendeth the reformation : that novelty, though it be not 
rejected, yet be always suspected : and, as the Scripture saith, ' that we make 
a stand upon the ancient way, and then look about us, and discover what is the 
straight and right way and so to walk in it.' " 

3. He does not resist improvement of the /aw;. 

Tenacity in retaining opinion, common to us all, is one of Lord Bacon's 
* Idols of the Tribe,' and attachment by professional men to professional know- 
ledge, is an idol of the den common to all professions. " I hate the steam 
boat," said an old Greenwich pensioner ; " it is contrary to nature." Our advo- 
cate, therefore, is on his guard against this idolatry : he remembers that the 
lawyers, and particularly St. Paul, were the most violent opposers of Chris- 
tianity, and that the civilians, upon being taunted by the common lawyers with 
the cruelty of the rack, answered " non ex saevitia sed ex bonitate talia faciunt 
homines." Nor does he forget the lawyer in the Utopia, who, when the Arch- 
bishop of Canterbury, venerable for his age and learning, said, " Upon these 
reasons it is that I think putting thieves to death is not lawful," the counsellor 
answered, " That it could never take place in England without endangering 
the whole nation. As he said this, he shook his head, made some grimaces, 
and held his peace. 

4. He is aware that lawyers are not the best improvers of law. 

During a debate in the House of Lords June 13, 1827, Lord Tenterden is 
reported to have said that it was fortunate that the subject (the amendment of 
the laws) had been taken up by a gentleman of an enlarged mind (Mr. Peel) 
who had not been bred to the law, for those who were, were rendered dull by 
habit, to many of its defects. And Lord Bacon says, '• Qui de legibus scrip- 
serunt, omnes, vel tanquam philosophi, vel tanquam jurisconsulti, argumentum 
illud tractaverunt. Atque philosophi proponunt multa, dictu pulchra, sed ab 
usu remota. Jurisconsulti autem, suae quisque patri?e legum, vel etiam Roma- 
narum, aut Pontificiarum, placitis obnoxii et addicti, judicio sincero non utun* 
tur, sed tanquam e vinculis sermocinantur. Certe cognitio ista ad viros civiles 
proprie spectat ; qui optime norunt, quid ferat societas humana, quid salus 
populi, quid ajquitas naturalis, quid gentium mores, quid rerumpublicarum 
formse diversae : ideoque possint de legibus, ex principiis et prseceptis, tarn, 
sequitatis naturalis, quam politices, decernere." 

5. He resists erroneous modes of altering bad law. 

Lawyers have a tendency, instead of inquiring whether the principle of a law 
is right, to alter upon the assumption that the principle is well founded. 

In 1809 Sir Samuel Romilly proposed to alter the law in bankruptcy, by 
which a creditor has an arbitrary power to withhold his consent to the allowance 
of the certificate, by enabling the debtor, after the lapse of two years, provided 
there was a large majority in number and value of creditors who had signed the 
certificate, to call upon his creditor to shew cause why the certificate should not 
be allowed. Sir Samuel thought, that the principle of the law was erroneous ; 
that it had a tendency to prevent a full disclosure of the estate, from the fear of 



NOTE C C. 

irritating creditors by exposure : and to prevent the obtaining possession of the 
estate after disclosure, by rendering the witness incompetent : and that it had a 
tendency to produce bribery and perjury ; that, even if a creditor ought to have 
a reasonable time to gratify his injured feelings, the time ought to be limited ; 
and he thought that the law, giving this power to an irritated individual, would 
be perverted by some of the many bad passions, which ought not to interfere in 
the administration of justice, such as resentment ; love of power ; the hope of 
bribery, against which the legislature had vainly attempted to guard ; the hope 
of concealment ; the hope to prevent the bankrupt's receiving any allowance ; 
the hope to prevent his being a witness ; or the fear of competition in trade : 
and he stated this to be the law in Holland, where commercial legislation is well 
understood. The bill passed the House of Commons : it was rejected in the 
Lords, upon a proposal by Lord Eldon, (who was then Chancellor,) that the 
requisite number and value of signatures should be reduced from four-fifths to 
three-fifths. 

About the same time Sir Samuel proposed that the law by which the stealing 
to the amount of five shillings privately in a shop was punishable by death, 
should be altered, as it was founded on an erroneous principle. It was suggested 
that the punishment ought not to be diminished, but the amount of the goods 
stolen increased. 

In various of the acts for the relief of insolvent debtors, which passed to 
mitigate the severe operation of arbitrary imprisonment for debt, the reason 
assigned in the preamble was, that the gaol was too full. The following is a 
specimen : 6 Geo. III. c. 70. Whereas, notwithstanding the great prejudice 
and detriment which occasional acts of insolvency may produce to trade and 
credit, it may be expedient, in the present condition of the prisons and gaols in 
this kingdom, that some of the prisoners who are now confined should be set at 
liberty ; be it, &c. 

In May 1827, it was proposed to parliament to alter the law for arrest on 
mesne process to the sum of 20/. Our advocate therefore resists such attempts, 
which, instead of meeting, perpetuate the evil, which 

" Keep the word of promise to our ear, 
And break it to our hope." 

6. He assists in the improvement of the law. 

While he dwells in doubt, and is in a strait between the ancient error and 
infant truth, he endeavours to improve himself, but after patient and successful 
travail after truth, he diffuses the knowledge which he has obtained. Having 
in the beginning consulted Argus with his hundred eyes, he now trusts to 
Briareus with his hundred hands. 

7. He is not deterred from assisting in the improvement of the law by the fear 
of worldly injury. 

Neither in general conduct nor in particular emergencies, are his plans sub- 
servient to considerations of rewards, estate, or title : these are not to have pre- 
cedence in his thoughts, to govern his actions, but to follow in the train of his 
duty. In the conclusion of Sir Samuel Romilly's speech in the House of Com- 
mons, on the 26th May, 1810, he says, " It is a common, and may be a 
convenient mode of proceeding, to prevent the progress of improvement, by 
endeavouring to excite the odium with which all attempts to reform are attended. 
Upon such expedients it is scarcely necessary for me to say, that I have calcu- 
lated. If I had consulted only my own immediate interests, my time might 
have been more profitably employed in the profession in which I am engaged. 
If I had listened to the dictates of prudence, if I had been alarmed by such 
prejudices, I could easily have discovered that the hope to amend law is not the 
disposition most favourable for preferment. I am not unacquainted with the 
best road to Attorney-Generalships and Chancellorships ; but in that path 
which my sense of duty dictates to be right, I shall proceed ; and from this no 
misunderstanding, no misrepresentation shall deter me." 

8. He is not deterred from endeavouring to improve the law by the censure ever 
attendant upon attempts to reform. 



NOTE C C. 

He knows that the multitude will cry out for Barabbas, and that ignorance 
has an antipathy to intellect. 

" 'Tis a rich man's pride, there having ever been 
More than a feud, a strange antipathy 
Between us and true gentry." 

He knows this, but proceeds, secure of his own approbation, and the sympathy 
of the virtuous and intelligent. 

10. If the principle of the law is erroneous, he endeavours to extirpate it, with 
its attendant injustice and litigation. 

If the principles of the laws against usury or witchcraft or widows burning 
themselves are erroneous, he endeavours to procure their repeal. In these cases 
he remembers the maxim of Sir Edward Coke, " Si quid moves a principio 
moveas ; errores ad principia referre est refellere." He remembers the old 
maxim, " He who in the cure of politic or of natural disorders shall rest himself 
contented with second causes, without setting forth in diligent travel to search 
for the original source of evil, doth resemble the slothful husbandman, who 
moweth down the heads of noisome weeds, when he should carefully pull up 
the roots ; and the work shall ever be to do again." 

11. If the principle is right, he endeavours to modify it, according to times and 
circumstances. 

If the principle of the laws against usury is well founded, he varies the rate 
of interest ; or in witchcraft he mitigates the severity of the punishment. In 
these cases he remembers the admonition of Sir Matthew Hale, " We must do 
herein, as a wise builder doth with an house that hath some inconveniences, or 
is under some decays. Possibly here or there a door or a window may be 
altered, or a partition made ; but as long as the foundations or principles of the 
house be sound, they must not be tampered with. The inconveniences in the 
law are of such a nature, as may be easily remedied without unsettling the 
frame itself ; and such amendments, though they seem small and inconsider- 
able, will render the whole fabric much more safe and useful." 

12. If he is advanced to any office of authority, he uses his power to improve the 
law. 

Sir Francis Bacon was no sooner appointed attorney-general than he dedicated 
to the king his proposals for compiling and amending the laws of England. 
" Your majesty," he says, " of your favour having made me privy counsellor, 
and continuing me in the place of your attorney-general, I take it to be my 
duty, not only to speed your commandments and the business of my place, but 
to meditate and to excogitate of myself, wherein I may best, by my travels, 
derive your virtues to the good of }'our people, and return their thanks and 
increase of love to you again. And after I had thought of many things, I could 
find, in my judgment, none more proper for your majesty as a master, nor for 
me as a workman, than the reducing and recompiling of the laws of England." 
And having traced the exertions of different legislators from Moses to Augustus, 
he says, " Caesar, si ab eo quaereretur, quid egisset in toga:; leges se respondisset 
multas et praeclaras tulisse;" and his nephew Augustus did tread the same 
steps, but with deeper print, because of his long reign in peace ; whereof one 
of the poets of his time saith, 

" Pace data terris, animum ad civilia vertit 
Jura suum ; legesque tulit justissimus auctor." 
So too, Sir Samuel Romilly was no sooner promoted to the office of Solicitor 
General, than he submitted to parliament his proposals for the improvement 
of the Bankrupt Law and the Criminal Law. '/ Long," he says, " has Europe 
been a scene of carnage and desolation. A brighter prospect has now opened 
before us. 

" Peace hath her victories 

Not less renowned than war." 

This note is written in December 1832, when legal reform, having triumphed 
over the obstacles by which it has for two centuries been resisted, is now nobly 



NOTES C C D D. 

prevailing-. Let me mention the efforts which, during the struggle, were 
made by my friends, Joseph Parkes of Birmingham, and Charles Cooper of 
Lincoln's Inn ; by Jeremy Bentham, to whose exertions in contemplative life, 
society is for ever indebted : and his friend Sir Samuel Romilly, and Lord 
Brougham, now Lord Chancellor, to whose exertions in active life society is 
more indebted than, since the time of Lord Bacon, it ever was to any individual 
for the diffusion through the community of all knowledge, and for the advance- 
ment of legal reform. " That/'' says Lord Bacon, " will indeed dignify and 
exalt knowledge, if contemplation and action may be more nearly and strongly 
conjoined and united together, than they have been : a conjunction like unto 
that of the two highest planets, Saturn, the planet of rest and contemplation, 
and Jupiter, the planet of civil society and action." I please myself with the 
hope that these improvements will be continued cautiously but vigorously : that 
the Chancellor will assist in separating the judicial and political functions of the 
Chancellor: that imprisonment for debt will be abolished; and, to insure a 
perpetuity of these improvements, that he will be the promoter and patron of a 
national or professional advocate's library, and consider Lord Bacon's constant, 
suggestion that there should be a board of legal reformers, that a living spring 
may mix with the stagnant waters, and reform advance calmly and steadily. 

In Bacon's first speech in parliament, ante, note B B, he says, " The Romans 
they appointed ten men who were to collect or recall all former laws, and to set 
forth those twelve tables so much of all men commended. The Athenians 
likewise appointed six for that purpose. And Lewis the Ninth, King of France, 
did the like in reforming his laws." 

He repeats this in his proposal, made when he was attorney-general, for the 
amendment of the laws of England : " The Romans, by their Decemviri, did 
make their twelve tables ; but that was indeed a new enacting or constituting of 
laws, not a registering or recompiling ; and they were made out of the laws of 
the Grecians, not out of their own customs. In Athens they had Sexviri, which 
were standing commissioners to watch and to discern what laws waxed unproper 
for the time ; and what new law did, in any branch, cross a former law, and so, 
ex officio, propounded their repeals. King Lewis XL of France, had it in his 
intention to have made one perfect and uniform law, out of the civil law Roman, 
and the provincial customs of France." The same observation is contained in 
his offer of a digest of the law published after his death. " In Athens they 
had Sexviri, (as ^schines observeth) which were standing commissioners, who 
did watch to discern what laws waxed improper for the times, and what new 
law did in any branch cross a former law, and so ex officio propounded their 
repeal." And in his tract on Universal Justice, A ph. 55, vol. ix. he says, " Erat 
in more apud Athenienses ut contraria legum capita (que Antinomias vocant) 
quotannis a sex viris examinarentur, et quae reconciliari non poterant propone- 
rentur populo, ut de illis certum aliquid statueretur. Ad quorum exemplum, 
ii, qui potestatem in singulis politiis legum condendarum habent, per triennium, 
aut quinquennium, aut prout videbitur, Antinomias retractanto. Eae autem a, 
viris, ad hoc delegatis, prius inspiciantur et praeparentur, et demiim comitiis 
exhibeantur, ut quod placuerit, per suffragia stabiliatur, et figatur." 

D D. Life, p. xxviii. 

Extract from Dewe's Journal of the House of Commons, p. 493. — Mr. F. Ba- 
con assented to three subsidies, but not to the payments under six years ; and to 
this propounded three questions, which he desired might be answered. The 
first, impossibility or difficulty; the second, danger or discontentment; and 
thirdly, a better manner of supply .than subsidy. For impossibility, the poor 
men's rent is such as they are not able to yield it, nor to pay so much for the 
present. The gentlemen must sell their plate, and farmers their brass pots ere 
this will be paid ; and for us, we are here to search the wounds of the realm, 
and not to skin them over ; therefore not to persuade ourselves of their wealth 
more than it is. The dangers are these : we shall first breed discontentment in 
paying these subsidies, and in the cause endanger her majesty's safety, which 



NOTES E E F F. 

must consist more in the love of the people than in their wealth, and therefore 
not to give them discontentment in paying these subsidies : thus we run into a 
double peril. In putting two payments into one, we make a double subsidy; 
for it maketh four shillings in the pound a double payment. The second is this, 
that this being granted to this sort, other princes hereafter will look for the like ; 
so we shall put an evil precedent upon ourselves and our posterity. And in 
histories it is to be observed, of all nations the English are not to be subject, 
base, or taxable. The manner of supply may be by levy or imposition when 
need shall most require, so when her majesty's coffers are empty they may be 
filled by this means. 

E E. Life, p. xxviii. 

Sir Francis Bacon to the Lord Treasurer, touching his Speech in Parliament. 

It may please your good Lordship, — I was sorry to find by your lordship's 
speech yesterday, that my last speech in parliament, delivered in discharge of 
my conscience, my duty to God, her majesty, and my country, was offensive: 
if it were misreported, I would be glad to attend your lordship, to disavow any 
thing I said not ; if it were misconstrued, I would be glad to expound my 
words, to exclude any sense I meant not ; if my heart be misjudged by imputa- 
tion of popularity, or opposition, I have great wrong, and the greater, because 
the manner of my speech did most evidently shew that I spake most simply, and 
only to satisfy my conscience, and not with any advantage or policy to sway 
the case, and my terras carried all signification of duty and zeal towards her 
majesty and her service. It is very true, that from the beginning, whatsoever 
was a double subsidy I did wish might for precedent's sake appear to be extra- 
ordinary, and for discontent's sake might not have been levied upon the poorer 
sort, though otherwise I wished it as rising as I think this will prove, or more. 
This was my mind, I confess it ; and therefore I most humbly pray your lord- 
ship, first, to continue me in your own good opinion, and then, to perform the 
part of an honourable good friend towards your poor servant and ally, in drawing 
her majesty to accept of the sincerity and simplicity of my zeal, and to hold me 
in her majesty's favour, which is to me dearer than my life, and so, etc. Your 
Lordship's most humble in all duty, Fr. Bacon. 

Mr. Francis Bacon to Sir John Puckering, Lord Keeper of the Great Seal. 

My Lord, — It is a great grief unto me, joined with marvel, that her majesty 
should retain an hard conceit of my speeches in parliament. It might please 
her sacred majesty to think what my end should be in those speeches, if it were 
not duty, and duty alone. I am not so simple, but I know the common beaten 
way to please. And whereas popularity hath been objected, I muse what care 
I should take to please many, that take a course of life to deal with few. On 
the other side, her majesty's grace and particular favour towards me hath been 
such, as I esteem no worldly thing above the comfort to enjoy it, except it be 
the conscience to deserve it. But if the not seconding of some particular per- 
son's opinion shall be presumption, and to differ upon the manner shall be to 
impeach the end ; it shall teach my devotion not to exceed wishes, and those in 
silence. Yet notwithstanding (to speak vainly as in grief)"it may be her majesty 
hath discouraged as good a heart as ever looked toward her service, and as void 
of self-love. And so in more grief than I can well express, and much more 
than I can well dissemble, I leave your lordship, being as ever, your Lordship's 
entirely devoted, &c. 

F F. Life, p. xxviii. 

No man better understood the doctrine both of concealment and of revelation 
of opinion than Lord Bacon. He well knew that nakedness is unseemlv as 
well in mind as in body, but the nature of his, and perhaps of every mind which 
beholds things as from a cliff, is to view extensively and to speak freely. It is, 



NOTES F F H H. 

he says, part of policy to observe a discreet mediocrity in the declaring, or not 
declaring a man's self: for although depth of secrecy, and making way, " qualis 
est via navis in mari," be sometimes both prosperous and admirable ; yet many 
times " Dissimulatio errores parit, qui dissimulatorem ipsum illaqueant ;" and 
therefore, we see the greatest politicians have in a natural and free manner pro- 
fessed their desires, rather than been reserved and disguised in them. 

See the Advancement of Learning, under the head of the Art of Advancement 
in Life, and under that part of it which relates to the arts of declaring and 
of revealing a man's self (pages 278 and 285, vol. ii. of this edition), and see 
in the treatise De Augmentis, when the same subject is considered, under his 
comment on " a fool utters all his mind, but a wise man reserves somewhat 
for hereafter." See also his Essay on Simulation and Dissimulation, vol. i. p. 17. 
See his conclusion of the first book of the Advancement of Learning, page 88 
of vol. ii. of this edition. See his essay on Goodness of Nature, vol. i. p. 40. 
" Neither give thou iEsop's cock a gem, who would be better pleased and 
happier if he had a barleycorn." 

H H. Life, p. xxx. 

To the Right Honourable, &c. the Lord Keeper, &c. 
My very good Lord, — Because I understand your lordship remaineth at court 
till this day, and that my lord of Essex writeth to me, that his lordship cometh 
to London, I thought good to remember your lordship, and to request you, as I 
touched in my last, that if my Lord Treasurer be absent, your lordship would 
forbear to fall into my business with her majesty, lest it might receive some foil 
before the time when it should be resolutely dealt in. And so commending 
myself to your good favour, I most humbly take my leave. Your Lordship's, 
in all humble duty and service, — Fr. Bacon. 
From Gray's Inn, this 8th of April, 1594. 

To the Right Honourable his very good Lord, the Lord Keeper of the Great 

Seal, &c. 
My very good Lord, — I was wished to be here ready in expectation of some 
good effect ; and therefore I commend my fortune to your lordship's kind and 
honourable furtherance. My affection inclineth me to be much [your] lord- 
ship's, and my course and way, in all reason and policy for myself, leadeth me 
to the same dependence : hereunto if there shall be joined your lordship's obli- 
gation in dealing strongly for me as you have begun, no man can be more 
yours. A timorous man is every body's, and a covetous man is his own. But 
if your lordship consider my nature, my course, my friends, my opinion with 
her majesty, if this eclipse of her favour were past, I hope you will think I am 
no unlikely piece of wood to shape you a true servant of. My present thankful- 
ness shall be as much as I have said. I humbly take my leave. Your Lord- 
ship's true humble servant, — Fr. Bacon. 

From Greenwich, this 5th of April, 1594. 

To the Right Honourable the Lord Keeper, &c. 

It may please your good Lordship, — I understand of some business like 
enough to detain the queen to-morrow, which maketh me earnestly to pray your 
good lordship, as one that I have found to take my fortune to heart, to take some 
time to remember her majesty of a solicitor this present day. Our Tower em- 
ployment stayeth, and hath done these three days, because one of the principal 
offenders being brought to confess, and the other persisting in denial, her 
majesty, in her wisdom, thought best some time were given to him that is obsti- 
nate, to bethink himself; which indeed is singular good in such cases. Thus 
desiring your lordship's pardon, in haste I commend my fortune and duty to 
your favour. Your Lordship's most humbly to receive your commandments, 
From Gray's Inn, Fr. Bacon. 

this 13th of August, 1594. 



NOTES I I — K K L L. 

1 1. Life, p. xxx. 

To the Right Honourable the Lord Keeper, &c. 

My Lord, — In my last conference with your lordship, I did entreat you both 
to forbear hurting Mr. Fr. Bacon's cause, and to suspend your judgment of his 
mind towards your lordship, till I had spoken with him, I went since that 
time to Twickenham Park to confer with him, and had signified the effect of our 
conference by letter ere this, if I had not hoped to have met with your lordship, 
and so to have delivered it by speech. I told your lordship when I last saw 
you, that this manner of his was only a natural freedom, and plainness, which 
he had used with me, and in my knowledge with some other of his best friends, 
than any want of reverence towards your lordship ; and therefore I was more 
curious to look into the moving cause of his style, than into the form of it ; 
which now I find to be only a diffidence of your lordship's favour and love to- 
wards him, and no alienation of that dutiful mind which he hath borne towards 
your lordship. And therefore I am fully persuaded, that if your lordship would 
please to send for him, there would grow so good satisfaction, as hereafter he 
should enjoy your lordship's honourable favour, in as great a measure as ever, 
and your lordship have the use of his service, who, I assure your lordship, is as 
strong in his kindness, as you find him in his jealousy. 1 will use no argument 
to persuade your lordship, that I should be glad of his being restored to your 
lordship's wonted favour ; since your lordship both knoweth how much my 
credit is engaged in his fortune, and may easily judge how sorry I should be, 
that a gentleman whom I love so much, should lack the favour of a person 
whom I honour so much. And thus commending your lordship to God's best 
protection, I rest your Lordship's very assured, Essex. 

Indorsed---31 August, 95. My Lord of Essex to have me send for Mr. 
Bacon, for he will satisfy me. In my Lord Keeper's own hand. 

K K. Life, p. xxx. 

Lord Treasurer Burghley to Mr. Francis Bacon. * 

Nephew, ---I have no leisure to write much ; but for answer I have attempted 
to place you : but her majesty hath required the Lord Keeper t to give to her 
the names of divers lawyers to be preferred, wherewith he made me acquainted, 
and I did name you as a meet man, whom his lordship allowed in way of 
friendship, for your father's sake : but he made scruple to equal you with cer- 
tain, whom he named, as Brograve % and Branthwayt, whom he specially com- 
mendeth. But I will continue the remembrance of you to her majesty, and 
implore my Lord of Essex's help. Your loving Uncle, W. Burghley. 

Sept. 27, 1593. 

L L. Life, p. xxx. 

To the Right Honourable the Lord Keeper, &c.§ 
It may please your Lordship, — I thought it became me to write to your lord- 
ship, upon that which I have understood from my Lord of Essex, who vouch- 
safed, as I perceive, to deal with your lordship of himself to join with him in 

* Among the papers of Antony Bacon, esq. vol. iii. fol. 197, in the Lambeth 
Library. 

t Puckering. 

X John Brograve, attorney of the duchy of Lancaster, and afterwards 
knighted. He is mentioned by Mr. Francis Bacon, in his letter to the Lord 
Treasurer of 7th June, 1595, from Gray's Inn, as having discharged his post of 
attorney of the duchy with great sufficiency. There is extant of his, in print, a 
reading upon the statute of 27 Henry VIII. concerning jointures. 

$ Harl. MSS. vol. 6997, Xo. 44. 



NOTES L L M M. 

the concluding of my business, and findeth your lordship hath conceived offence, 
as well upon my manner when I saw your lordship at Temple last, as upon a 
letter, which I did write to your lordship some time before. Surely, my lord, 
for my behaviour, I am well assured, I omitted no point of duty or ceremony 
towards your lordship. But I know too much of the court to beg a countenance 
in public place, where I make account I shall not receive it. And for my 
letter, the principal point of it was, that which I hope God will give me grace 
to perform, which is, that if any idol man be offered to her majesty, since it is 
mixed with my particular, to inform her majesty truly, which I must do, as long 
as I have a tongue to speak, or a pen to write, or a friend to use. And farther 
I remember not of my letter, except it were that I writ, I hoped your lordship 
would do me no wrong, which hope I do still continue. For if it please your 
lordship but to call to mind from whom 1 am descended, and by whom, next to 
God, her majesty, and your own virtue, your lordship is ascended ; I know you 
will have a compunction of mind to do me any wrong. And therefore, good 
my lord, when your lordship favoureth others before me, do not lay the separa- 
tion of your love and favour upon myself. For I will give no cause, neither 
can I acknowledge any, where none is ; but humbly pray your lordship to un- 
derstand things as they are. Thus sorry to write to your lordship in an argu- 
ment which is to me unpleasant, though necessary, I commend your lordship 
to God's good preservation. Your Lordship's, in all humble respect, 

From Twickenham Park, Fr. Bacon. 

this 19th of August, 1595. 

To the Right Honourable the Lord Keeper, &c* 

It may please your Lordship, ---There hath nothing happened to me in the 
course of my business more contrary to my expectation, than your lordship's 
failing me, and crossing me now in the conclusion, when friends are best tried. 
But now I desire no more favour of your lordship, than I would do if I were a 
suitor in the chancery ; which is this only, that you would do me right. And 
I for my part, though I have much to allege, yet nevertheless, if I see her ma- 
jesty settle her choice upon an able man, such a one as Mr. Sergeant Fleming, 
I will make no means to alter it. On the other side, if I perceive any insuffi- 
cient, obscure, idol man offered to her majesty, then I think myself double 
bound to use the best means I can for myself; which I humbly pray your 
lordship I may do with your favour, and that you will not disable me farther 
than is cause. And so I commend your lordship to God's preservation, that 
beareth your Lordship all humble respect, Fr. Bacon. 
From Gray's Inn, the 28th of July, 1595. 

Indorsed, in Lord Keeper's hand---Mr. Bacon wronging me. 

M M. Life, p. xxx. 

Your lordship would yet tueri opus tuum and give as much life unto this pre- 
sent suit for the solicitor's place, as may be without offending the queen (for 
that were not good for me). This last request I find it more necessary for me 
to make, because (though I am glad of her majesty's favour, that I may with 
more ease practise the law, which percase I may use now and then for my 
countenance,) yet to speak plainly, though perhaps vainly, I do not think that 
the ordinary practice of the law, not serving the queen in place, will be admitted 
for a good account of the poor talent that God hath given me, so as I make 
reckoning, I shall reap no great benefit to myself in that course. 

To Lord Burleigh. 

I have ever had your lordship in singular admiration ; whose happy ability 
her majesty hath so long used, to her great honour and yours. Besides that 
amendment of state or countenance, which I have received, hath been from 

* Harl. MSS. vol. 6997, No. 37. 



NOTES N X P P. 

your lordship. And therefore, if your lordship shall stand a good friend to 
your poor ally, you shall but " tueri opus" which you have begun. And your 
lordship shall bestow your benefit upon one that hath more sense of obligation 
than of self-love. Thus humbly desiring pardon of so long a letter, I wish your 
lordship all happiness. Your Lordship's in all humbleness to be commanded. 
June 6, 1595. Fr. Bacon. 

N N. Life, p. xxx. 

The author of the Biographia says, It was now that he discovered how little 
reason he had to trust to, or depend upon, the Cecils, and had very little cause 
to be well jpleased with the conduct of the then Lord Keeper. Is not this ob- 
servation, as far as relates to Lord Burleigh unfounded 1 

In Essex's letter to Bacon, indorsed March 28, 1594, Essex says, " The 
queen said that none thought you fit for the place, but my Lord Treasurer and 
myself. So also in Essex's letter to Bacon, of the 18th of May, 1596, Essex 
says, " The queen answered that the greatness of your friends, as of my Lord 
Treasurer and myself, did make men even a more favourable testimony than 
else they would do, v.\c. And Bacon himself, in a letter to Sir Robert Cecil, 
accusing him of having been bribed, says, " You wrought in a contrary spirit to 
my lord your father." See also Burleigh's letter of September 27, 1593, ante, 
note. 

In a letter to Lord Burleigh, after the appointment of Fleming, Bacon says, 
And therefore, (my singular good lord) " ex abundantia cordis," I must ac- 
knowledge how greatly and diversely your lordship hath vouchsafed to tie me 
unto you by many your benefits. The reversion of the office which your lord- 
ship only procured unto me, and carried through great and vehement opposition, 
though it yet bear no fruit, yet it is one of the fairest flowers of my poor estate ; 
your lordship's constant and serious endeavours to have me solicitor : your late 
honourable wishes, for the place of the wards : together with your lordship's 
attempt to give me way by the remove of Mr. Solicitor ; they be matters of sin- 
gular obligations ; besides mauy other favours, as well by your lordship's grants 
from yourself, as by your commendation to others, which I have had for my 
help ; and may justly persuade myself out of the few denials I have received 
that fewer might have been, if mine own industry and good hap had been an- 
swerable to your lordship's goodness, 

O O. Life, p. xxxi. 

In a letter to Lord Burleigh, he says, If I did show myself too credulous to 
idle hearsays, in regard of my right honourable kinsman and good friend Sir 
Robert Cecil (whose good nature did well answer my honest liberty), your 
lordship will impute it to the complexion of a suitor, and of a tired sea-sick 
suitor, and not to mine own inclination. 



P P. Life, p. xxxi. 

Earl of Essex to Mr. Francis Bacon. 

Sir, — I wrote not to you till I had had a second conference with the queen, 
because the first was spent only in compliments : she in the beginning excepted 
all business : this day she hath seeu me again. After I had followed her humour 
in talking of those things, which she would entertain me with, I told her, in my 
absence I had written to Sir Robert Cecil, to solicit her to call you to that 
place, to which all the world had named you ; and being now here, I must fol- 
low it myself ; for I know what service I should do her in procuring you the 
place ; and she knew not how great a comfort I should take in it. Her answer 
in playing just was, that she came not to me for that, I should talk of those 
things when I came to her, not when she came to me ; the term was coming, 



NOTE P P. 

and she would advise. I would have replied, but she stopped my mouth. To- 
morrow or the next day I will go to her, and then this excuse will be taken 
away. When I know more, you shall hear more ; and so I end full of pain in 
my head, which makes me write thus confusedly. Your most affectionate 
friend. 

The Earl of Essex to Mr. Francis Bacon.* 

Mr. Bacon, — Your letter met me here yesterday. When I came, I found 
the queen so wayward, as I thought it no fit time to deal with her in any sort, 
especially since her choler grew towards myself, which I have well satisfied this 
day, and will take the first opportunity I can to move your suit. And if you 
come hither, I pray you let me know still where you are. And so being full of 
business, I must end, wishing you what you wish to yourself. 

1593, Sept. Your assured friend, Essex. 

The Earl of Essex to Mr. Francis Bacon.t 
Sir, — I have now spoken with the queen, and I see no stay from obtaining a 
full resolution of what we desire. But the passion she is in by reason of the 
tales that have been told her against Nicholas Clifford, with whom she is in such 
rage, for a matter, which I think you have heard of, doth put her infinitely out 
of quiet ; and her passionate humour is nourished by some foolish women. 
Else I find nothing to distaste us, for she doth not contradict confidently ; 
which they, that know the minds of women, say is a sign of yielding. I will 
to-morrow take more time to deal with her, and will sweeten her with all the 
art I have to make benevolum auditorem. I have already spoken with Mr. 
Vice-Chamberlain 4 and will to-morrow speak with the rest. Of Mr. Vice- 
Chamberlain you may assure yourself; for so much he hath faithfully promised 
me. The exceptions against the competitors I will use to-morrow ; for then I 
do resolve to have a full and large discourse, having prepared the queen to-night 
to assign me a time under colour of some such business, as I have pretended. 
In the mean time I must tell you, that I do not respect either my absence, or 
my showing a discontentment in going away, for I was received at my return, 
and I think I shall not be the worse. And for that I am oppressed with multi- 
tude of letters that are come, of which I must give the Queen some account 
to-morrow morning, I therefore desire to be excused for writing no more to- 
night : to-morrow you shall hear from me again. I wish you what you wish 
yourself in this and all things else, and rest your most affectionate friend, 

This Friday at night, Essex. 

Indorsed, March 29, 1594. 

Earl of Essex to Mr. Francis Bacon. 

Sir, — I went yesterday to the queen through the galleries in the morning, af- 
ternoon, and at night. I had long speech with her of you, wherein I urged both 
the point of your extraordinary sufficiency proved to me not only by your last 
argument, but by the opinion of all men I spake withal, and the point of mine 
own satisfaction, which, I protested, should be exceeding great, if, for all her 
unkindness and discomforts past, she should do this one thing for my sake. 
To the first she answered, that the greatness of your friends, as of my Lord 
Treasurer and myself, did make men give a more favourable testimony than else 
they would do, thinking thereby they pleased us. And that she did acknow- 
ledge you had a great wit, and an excellent gift of speech, and much other 
good learning. But in the law she rather thought you could make show to the 
uttermost of your knowledge, than that you were deep. To the second she said, 

* Among the papers of Antony Bacon, esq. vol. iii. fol. 197, in the Lambeth 
Library. 

t Among the papers of Antony Bacon, Esq. vol. iv. fol. 89, in the Lambeth 
Library. 

J Sir Thomas Heneage. 



NOTE P P. 

she showed her mislike to the suit, as well as I had done my affection in it ; 
and that if there were a yielding, it was fitter to he of my side. I then added, 
that this was an answer, with which she might deny me all things, if she did not 
grant them at the first, which was not her manner to do. But her majesty had 
made me suffer and give way in many things else ; which all I should bear, 
not only with patience, but with great contentment, if she would but grant my 
humble suit in this one. And for the pretence of the approbation given you 
upon partiality, that all the world, lawyers, judges, and all, could not be partial 
to you ; for somewhat you were crossed for their own interest, and some for 
their friends ; but yet all did yield to your merit. 

Earl of Essex to Mr. Francis Bacon.* 
Sir, — I have received your letter, and since I have had opportunity to deal 
freely with the Queen. I have dealt confidently with her as a matter, wherein 
I did more labour to overcome her delays, than that I did fear her denial. I 
told her how much you were thrown down with the correction she had already 
given you, that she might in that point hold herself already satisfied. And be- 
cause I found that Tanfieldt had been most propounded to her, I did most 
disable him. I find the Queen very reserved, staying herself upon giving any 
kind of hope, yet not passionate against you, till I grew passionate for you. 
Then she said, that none thought you fit for the place but my Lord Treasurer 
and myself. Marry, the others must some of them say before us, for fear or for 
flattery. I told her, the most and wisest of her council had delivered their 
opinions, and preferred you before all men for that place. And if it would 
please her majesty to think, that whatsoever they said contrary to their own 
words when they spake without witness, might be as factiously spoken, as the 
other way flatteringly, she would not be deceived. Yet if they had been never 
for you, but contrarily against you, I thought my credit, joined with the appro- 
bation and mediation of her greatest counsellors, might prevail in a greater 
matter than this ; and urged her, that though she could not signify her mind to 
others, I might have a secret promise, wherein I should receive great comfort, 
as in the contrary great unkindness. She said she was neither persuaded nor 
would hear of it till Easter, when she might advise with her council, who were 
now all absent ; and, therefore, in passion bid me go to bed,* if I would talk of 
nothing else. Wherefore in passion I went away, saying, while I was with her 
I could not but solicit for the cause and the man I so much affected ; and 
therefore I would retire myself till I might be more graciously heard ; and so 
we parted. To-morrow I will go hence of purpose, and on Thursday I will 
write an expostulating letter to her. That night or upon Friday morning I will 
be here again, and follow on the same course, stirring a discontentment in her, 
&c. And so wish you all happiness, and rest your most assured friend, 
Indorsed— March 28, 1594. Essex. 

Mr. Francis Bacon to his brother Antony. 
Good Brother, — Since I saw you this hath passed. Tuesday, though sent 
for, I saw not the Queen. Her majesty alleged she was then to resolve with 
the council upon her places of law. But this resolution was ut supra ; and note 
the rest of the counsellors were persuaded she came rather forwards than other- 
wise ; for against me she is never peremptory but to my lord of Essex. I missed 
a line of my Lord Keeper's ; but thus much I hear otherwise. The Queen 
seemeth to apprehend my travel. Whereupon I was sent for by Sir Robert 
Cecil, in sort as from her majesty ; himself having of purpose immediately gone 
to London to speak with me ; and not finding me there, he wrote to me. Where- 
upon I came to the court, and upon his relation to me of her majesty's speeches, 



* Among the papers of Antony Bacon, Esq. vol. iv. fol. 90, in the Lambeth 
Library. 

t Probably Laurence Tanfield, made Lord Chief Baron of the Exchequer in 
June, 1607. 



NOTE P P. 

I desired leave to answer it in writing ; not, I said, that I mistrusted his report, 
but mine own wit; the copy of which answer I send. We parted in kindness 
secundum exterius. This copy you must needs return, for I have no other ; and 
I wrote this by memory after the original was sent away. The Queen's speech 
is after this sort. Why ? I have made no solicitor. Hath any body carried 
a solicitor with him in his pocket 1 But he must have it in his own time (as if 
it were but yesterday's nomination) or else I must be thought to cast him away. 
Then her majesty sweareth thus : " If I continue this manner, she will seek all 
England for a solicitor rather than take me. Yea, she will send for Heuston 
and Coventry to-morrow next," as if she would swear them both. Again she 
entereth into it, that " she never deals so with any as with me (in hoc erratum 
nan est) she hath pulled me over the bar (note the words, for they cannot be 
her own) she hath used me in her greatest causes. But this is Essex, and she 
is more angry with him than with me/' And such like speeches, so strange, as 
I should lose myself in it, but that I have cast off the care of it. My conceit 
is, that I am the least part of mine own matter. But her majesty would have 
a delay, and yet would not bear it herself. Therefore she giveth no way to me, 
and she perceiveth her council giveth no way to others ; and so it sticketh as 
she would have it. But what the secret of it is oculus aquiLce non penetravit. 
My lord continueth on kindly and wisely a course worthy to obtain a better 
effect than a delay, which to me is the most unwelcome condition. 

Now to return to you the part of a brother, and to render you the like kind- 
ness, advise you, whether it were not a good time to set in strongly with the 
Queen to draw her to honour your travels. For in the course 1 am like to take 
it will be a great and necessary stay to me, besides the natural comfort I shall 
receive. And if you will have me deal with my lord of Essex, or otherwise 
break it by mean to the Queen, as that which shall give me full contentment, I 
will do it as effectually, and with as much good discretion as I can. Wherein 
if you aid me with your direction, I shall observe it. This as I did ever account 
it sure and certain to be accomplished, in case myself had been placed, and 
therefore deferred it till then, as to the proper opportunity - 7 so now that I see 
such delay in mine own placing, I wish ei animo it should not expect. 

I pray you let me know what mine uncle Killigrew will do ; for I must be 
more careful of my credit than ever, since I receive so little thence where I de- 
served best. And, to be plain with you, I mean even to make the best of those 
small things I have with as much expedition, as may be without loss ; and so 
sing a mass of requiem, I hope, abroad. For I know her majesty's nature, 
that she neither careth though the whole surname of Bacons travelled, nor of 
the Cecils neither. 

I have here an idle pen or two, specially one, that was cozened, thinking to 
have got some money this term. I pray send me somewhat else for them to 
Avrite out besides your Irish collection, which is almost done. There is a col- 
lection of King James, of foreign states, largeliest of Flanders ; which, though 
it be no great matter, yet I would be glad to have it. Thus I commend you to 
God's good protection. Your entire loving Brother, Fr. Bacon. 

From my lodging, at Twickenham Park, 
this 25th of January, 1594. 

To the right honourable my very good Lord, the Lord Keeper. 

My Lord,-— I have, since I spake with your lordship, pleaded to the queen 
against herself for the injury she doth Mr. Bacon, in delaying him so long, and 
the unkindness she doth me in granting no better expedition in a suit which I 
have followed so long, and so affectionately. And though 1 find that she 
makes some difficulty, to have the more thanks, yet I do assure myself she is 
resolved to make him. I do write this, not to solicit your lordship to stand 
firm in assisting me, because, I know, you hold yourself already tied by your 
affection to Mr. Bacon, and by your promise to me ; but to acquaint your lord- 
ship of my resolution to rest, and employ my uttermost strength to get 
him placed before the term : so as I beseech your lordship think of no tempo- 
rising course, for I shall think the Queen deals unkindly with me, if she do not 



NOTES Q Q R R. 

both give him the place, and give it with favour and some extraordinary advan- 
tage. I wish your lordship all honour and happiness, and rest, 

Your Lordship's very assured, Essex. 
Greenwich, this 14th of January, [1594.] 
Endorsed— My Lord of Essex, for Mr. Eran. Bacon to be Solicitor. 

Earl of Essex to Lord Keeper Puckering. 
My Lord, — My short stay at the court made me fail of speaking with your 
lordship, therefore I must write that which myself had told you ; that is, that 
your lordship will be pleased to forbear pressing for a solicitor, since there is no 
cause towards the end of a term to call for it ; and because the absence of Mr. 
Bacon's friends may be much to his disadvantage. I wish your lordship all 
happiness, and rest your Lordship's very assured to be commanded, Essex. 
Wanstead, this 4th of May, 1594. 

Q Q. Life, p. xxxii. 

Mr. Francis Bacon to the Queen. 

Madam, — Remembering that your majesty had been gracious to me both in 
countenancing me, and conferring upon me the reversion of a good place, and 
perceiving that your majesty had taken some displeasure towards me, both these 
were arguments to move me to offer unto your majesty my service, to the end to 
have means to deserve your favour, and to repair my error. Upon this ground, 
I affected myself to no great matter, but only a place of my profession, such as 
I do see divers younger in proceeding to myself, and men of no great note, do 
without blame aspire unto. But if any of my friends do press this matter, 1 do 
assure your majesty my spirit is not with them. 

It sufficeth me that I have let your majesty know that I am ready to do that 
for the service, which I never would do for mine own gain. And if your 
majesty like others better, I shall, with the Lacedemonian, be glad that there is 
such choice of abler men than myself. Your majesty's favour indeed, and 
access to your royal person, 1 did ever, encouraged by your own speeches, seek 
and desire ; and I would be very glad to be reintegrate in that. But I will not 
wrong mine own good mind so much as to stand upon that now, when your 
majesty may conceive I do it but to make my profit of it. But my mind 
turneth upon other wheels than those of profit. The conclusion shall be, that 
I wish your majesty served answerable to yourself. Principis est virtus maxima 
nosse suos. Thus I most humbly crave pardon of my boldness and plainness. 
God preserve your majesty. 

R R. Life, p. xxxii. 

Foulke Grevill, Esq. to Mr. Francis Bacon. 

Mr. Francis Bacon, — Saturday was my first coming to the court, from whence 
I departed again as soon as I had kissed her majesty's hands, because I had no 
lodging nearer than my uncle's, which is four miles off. This day I came 
thither to dinner, and waiting for to speak with the Queen, took occasion to tell 
how I met you, as 1 passed through London ; and among other speeches, how 
you lamented your misfortune to me, that remained as a withered branch of her 
roots, which she had cherished and made to flourish in her service. I added 
what I thought of your worth, and the expectation for all this, that the world 
had of her princely goodness towards you : which it pleased her majesty to con- 
fess, that indeed you began to frame very well, insomuch as she saw an amends 
in those little supposed errors, avowing the respect she carried to the dead, with 
very exceeding gracious inclination towards you. Some comparisons there fell 
out besides, which I leave till we meet, which I hope shall be this week. It 
pleased her withal to tell of the jewel you offered her by Mr. Vice- Chamberlain, 
which she had refused, yet with exceeding praise. I marvel, that as a prince 
she should refuse those havings of her poor subjects, because it did include a 

vol. xv. 4 



NOTES SS TT V V WW. 

small sentence of despair ; but either I deceive myself, or she was resolved to 
take it ; and the conclusion was very kind and gracious. Sure as I will one 
hundred pounds to fifty pounds that you shall be her solicitor, and my friend ; 
in which mind, and for which mind I commend you to God. From the court 
this Monday in haste, your true friend to be commanded by you, 

FOULKE GREVILL. 

We cannot tell whether she come to , or stay here. I am much 

absent for want of lodging ; wherein my own man hath only been to blame. 
Indorsed— 17th of June, 1594. 

S S. Life, p. xxxii. 

See an interesting discussion upon this subject, in Hazlitt's essay on this 
regal character, in his Political Essays. 

TT. Life, p. xxxiii. 

In a letter to Lord Burleigh, he says, When my father was appointed Attorney 
of the Duchy, and that he had discharged his duties with great sufficiency : 
And if her majesty thinketh that she shall make an adventure in using one that 
is rather a man of study than of practice and experience, surely I may remem- 
ber to have heard that my father, an example, I confess, rather ready than like, 
was made solicitor of the Augmentation, a court of much business, when he 
had never practised, and was but twenty-seven years old ; and Mr. Brograve 
was now in my time called attorney of the duchy, when he had practised little 
or nothing, and yet hath discharged his place with great sufficiency. 

V V. Life, p. xxxiii. 

To Foulk Grevil. 
Sir, — My matter is an endless question. I assure you I had said, Requiesce, 
anima mea : but I now am otherwise put to my psalter ; Nolite confidere. I 
dare go no farther. Her majesty had, by set speech, more than once assured 
me of her intention to call me to her service ; which I could not understand 
but of the place I had been named to. And now, whether invidus homo hoc 
fecit ; or whether my matter must be an appendix to my lord of Essex suit ; or 
whether her majesty, pretending to prove my ability, meaneth but to take 
advantage of some errors, which like enough, at one time or other, I may com- 
mit ; or what it is ; but her majesty is not ready to dispatch it. And what 
though the master of the Rolls, and my lord of Essex, and yourself and others, 
think my case without doubt, yet in the mean time I have a hard condition to 
stand so, that whatsoever service I do to her majesty, it shall be thought but to 
be servilium viscatum, lime-twigs and fetches to place myself; and so I shall 
have envy, not thanks. This is a course to quench all good spirits, and to 
corrupt every man's nature ; which will, I fear, much hurt her majesty's service 
in the end. I have been like a piece of stuff bespoken in the shop ; and if her 
majesty will not take me, it may be the selling by parcels will be more gainful. 
For to be, as I told you, like a child following a bird, which, when he is 
nearest flieth away, and lighteth a little before, and then the child after it again, 
and so in infinitum; I am weary of it, as also of wearying my good friends: 
of whom, nevertheless, I hope in one course or other gratefully to deserve. 

W W. Life, p. xxxiv. 

From Bacon's Letter to the Earl of Devonshire. 
And on the other side, I must and will ever acknowledge my lord's love, 
trust, and favour towards me, last of all his liberality, having infeofed me of 
land which I sold for eighteen hundred pounds to Master Reynold Nicholas, 
and I think was more worth, and that at such a time, and with so kind and 
noble circumstances, as the manner was as much as the matter ; which though 



NOTES W W— X X. 

it be but an idle digression, yet because I am not willing to be short in com- 
memoration of his benefits, I will presume to trouble your lordship with the 
relating to you the manner of it. After the Queen had denied me the solicitor's 
place, for the which his lordship had been a long and earnest suitor ou my be- 
half, it pleased him to come to me from Richmond to Twickuam Park, and 
brake with me, and said, Mr. Bacon, the Queen hath denied me the place for 
you, and hath placed another ; I know you are the least part of your own 
matter, but you faie ill, because you have chosen me for your mean and de- 
pendance : you have spent your time and thoughts in my matters ; I die (these 
were his very words) if I do not somewhat towards your fortune ; you shall not 
deny to accept a piece of land, which I will bestow upon you. My answer, I 
remember was, that for my fortune it was no great matter ; but that his lord- 
ship's offer made me call to mind what was wont to be said, when I was in 
France, of the Duke of Guise, that he was the greatest usurer in France, because 
he had turned all his estate into obligations ; meaning that he had left himself 
nothing, but only had bound numbers of persons to him. Now, my lord, (said 
1)1 would not have you imitate his course, nor turn your state thus by great 
gifts into obligations, for you will find many bad debtors. He bad me take no 
care for that, and pressed it : whereupon I said, My lord, I see I must be your 
homager, and hold land of your gift ; but do you know the manner of doing 
homage in law 1 Always it is with a saying of his faith to the king and his 
other lords, and therefore, my lord, (said I) I can be no more yours than I was, 
and it may be with the ancient savings ; and if I grow to be a rich man, you 
will give me leave to give it back to some of your unrewarded followers. 

XX. Life, p. xxxiv. 

In a letter to Sir Robert Cecil, he says : Casting the worst of my fortune with 
an honourable friend, that had long used me privately, I told his lordship of 
this purpose of mine to travel, accompanying it with these very words, that 
upon her majesty's rejecting me with such circumstance, though my heart 
might be good, yet mine eyes would be sore, that I should take no pleasure to 
look upon my friends ; for that I was not an impudent man, that could face 
out a disgrace; and that I hoped her majesty would not be offended, that, not 
able to endure the sun, I fled into the shade. 

Mr. Francis Bacon to the Earl of Essex.* 
My Lord, — I thank your lordship very much for your kind and comfortable 
letter, which I hope will be followed at hand with another of more assurance. 
And I must confess this very delay hath gone so near me, as it hath almost 
overthrown my health ; for when I revolved the good memory of my father, the 
near degree of alliance I stand in to my Lord Treasurer, your lordship's so sig- 
nalled and declared favour, the honourable testimony of so many counsellors, 
the commendations unlaboured, and in sort offered by my lords the Judges and 
the Master of the Rolls elect ;t that I was voiced with great expectation, and, 
though I say it myself, with the wishes of most men, to the higher place ; X that 
I am a man that the Queen hath already done for ; and that princes, especially 
her majesty, love to make an end where they begin; and then add hereunto 
the obscureness and many exceptions to my competitors : when I say I revolve 
all this, I cannot but conclude with myself, that no man ever read a more exqui- 
site disgrace ; and therefore truly, my lord, I was determined, if her majesty 
reject me, this to do. My nature can take no evil ply ; but I will, by God's 
assistance, with this disgrace of my fortune, and yet with that comfort of the 
good opinion of so many honourable and worthy persons, retire myself with a 
couple of men to Cambridge, and there spend my life in my studies and con- 

* Among the papers of Antony Bacon, Esq. vol. iii. fol. 62, in the Lambeth 
Library. 

t Sir Thomas Egerton. 

X That of Attorney General. 



NOTE Y Y. 

temptations without looking back. I humbly pray your lordship to pardon me 
for troubling you with my melancholy. For the matter itself, I commend it to 
your love ; only I pray you communicate afresh this day with my Lord Trea- 
surer and Sir Robert Cecil ; and if you esteem my fortune, remember the point 
of precedency. The objections to my competitors your lordship knoweth partly. 
I pray spare them not, not over the Queen, but to the great ones, to show your 
confidence, and to work their distrust. Thus longing exceedingly to exchange 
troubling your lordship with serving you, I rest your Lordship's, in most intire 
and faithful service, Francis Bacon. — March 30, 1594. 

I humbly pray your lordship I may hear from you some time this day. 

Y Y. Life, p. xxxiv. 

In the postscript to Bushel's Abridgment, page 1, he says, Reader, if thou 
hast perused the foregoing treatise of the Isle of Bensalem, wherein the philo- 
sophical father of Solomon's house doth perfectly demonstrate my heroick 
master (the Lord Chancellor Bacon's) design for the benefit of mankind ; then 
give me leave to tell thee, how far that illustrious lord proceeding the practical 
part of such his philososhical notions, and when and where they had their first 
rise, as well as their first eclipse ; their first rise (as I have heard him say) was 
from the noble nature of the Earle of Essex's affection, and so they were clouded 
by his fall, although he bequeathed to that lord [upon his representing him 
with a secret curiosity of nature, whereby to know the season of every hour of 
the year by a philosophical glass, placed (with a small proportion of water) 
in his chamber,] Twitnam Parke, and its garden of Paradise, to study in. But 
the sudden change of his royal mistress's countenance acting so tragical a part 
upon his only friend, and her once dearest favourite, he likewise yielded his law 
studies as lost, despairing of any preferment from the present state, as by many 
of his letters in his book of Remains appears, so that he retired to his philosophy 
for some few months, from whence he presented the then rising sun (Prince 
Henry) with an experiment of his second collections, to know the heart of 
man by a sympathizing stone, made of several mixtures, and ushered in the 
conceit with this ensuing discourse : Most royal Sir, Since you are by birth the 
prince of -our country, and your virtues the happy pledge to our posterity ; and 
that the seigniority of greatness is ever attended more with flatterers than faithful 
friends and loyal subjects ; and therefore needeth more helps to discern and 
pry into the hearts of the people than private persons. Give me leave, noble 
sir, as small rivulets run to the vast ocean, to pay their tribute ; so let me have 
the honour to shew your highness the operative quality of these triangular 
stones (as the first fruits of my philosophy), to imitate the pathetical motion of 
the loadstone and iron, although made by the compounds of meteors fas star 
shot jelly) and other like magical ingredients, with the reflected beams of the 
sun, on purpose that the warmth distilled unto them through the moist heat of 
the hand, might discover the affection of the heart, by a visible sign of their 
attraction and appetite to each other, like the hand of a watch, within ten 
minutes after they are laid upon a marble table, or the theatre of a large looking 
glass. I write not this as a feigned story, but as a real truth ; for I was never 
quiet in mind till I had procured those jewels of my lord's philosophy from Mr. 
Achry Primrose, the prince's page. 

His love of philosophy thus appears in all his times of adversity. So true is 
his observation, in his History of Arts : — As a man's disposition is never well 
known till he be crossed, nor Proteus ever changed shapes till he was straitened 
and held fast ; so the passages and variations of nature cannot appear so fully 
in the liberty of nature, as in the trials and vexations of art. 

Of this invention Archbishop Tennison, in his Baconiana, page 18, thus 
speaks : His second invention was a secret curiosity of nature, whereby to 
know the season of every hour of the year, by a philosophical glass placed (with 
a small proportion of water) in a chamber. This invention I describe in the 
words of him, from whom I had the notice of it, Mr. Thomas Bushel, one of 
his lordship's menial servants ; a man skilful in discovering and opening of 



NOTE Y Y. 

mines, and famous for his curious water-works, in Oxfordshire, by which he 
imitated rain, hail, the rainbow, thunder and lightning. This secret cannot be 
that instrument which we call v it rum calendare, or the weather-glass, the Lord 
Bacon in his writings, speaking of that as a thing in ordinary use, and com- 
mending, not water, but rectified spirit of wine in the use of it. Nor (being an 
instrument made with water) is it likely to have shewed changes of the air with 
so much exactness as the latter baroscope made with mercury. And yet, it 
should seem to be a secret of high value, by the reward it is said to have pro- 
cured. For the Earl of Essex (as he in his Extract, page 17, reporteth) when 
Mr. Bacon had made a present of it to him, was pleased to be very bountiful in 
his thanks, and bestow upon him Twicknam Park, and its garden of paradise, 
as a place for his studies. I confess I have not faith enough to believe the 
whole of this relation. And yet I believe the Earl of Essex was extremely 
liberal, and free even to profuseness ; that he was a great lover of learned men, 
being, in some sort, one of them himself ; and that with singular patronage he 
cherished the hopeful parts of Mr. Bacon, who also studied his fortunes and 
service. Yet Mr. Bacon himself, where he professeth his unwillingness to be 
short, in the commemoration of the favours of that earl, is, in this great one, 
perfectly silent. 

Of his practical inventive powers, more fit for the hand of a mechanic than 
of a philosopher, Tennison, in his Baconiana thus speaks : — I doubt not but 
his mechanical inventions were many. But I can call to mind but three at 
this time, and of them I can give but a very broken account; and, for his in- 
struments and ways in recovering deserted mines, I can give no account at all ; 
though certainly, without new tools and peculiar inventions, he would never 
have undertaken that new and hazardous work. Of the three inventions which 
come now to my memory, the first was an engine representing the motion of 
the planets. Of this 1 can say no more than what I find, in his own words, in 
one of his miscellany papers in manuscript. The words are these : " I did 
once cause to be represented to me, by wires, the motion of some planets, in 
fact as it is, without theories of orbs, &c. And it seemed a strange and extra- 
vagant motion. One while they moved in spires forwards ; another while they 
did unwind themselves in spires backwards : one while they made larger 
circles, and higher; another while smaller circles, and lower: one while they 
moved to the north, in their spires, another while to the south," &c. 

But there is, in his Apologie, another story, which may seem to have given 
to Mr. Bushel the occasion of his mistake. " After the Queen had denied to 
Mr. Bacon the Solicitor's place, for the which the Earl of Essex had been a 
long and earnest suitor on his behalf, it pleased that earl to come to him from 
Richmond to Twicknam Park, and thus to break with him : Mr. Bacon, the 
Queen hath denied me the place for you. You fare ill, because you have 
chosen me for your mean and dependance : you have spent your thoughts and 
time in my matters ; I die if I do not do somewhat towards your fortune. You 
shall not deny to accept a piece of land which I will bestow upon you." And 
it was, it seems, so large a piece, that he undersold it for no less than eighteen 
hundred pounds. 

Of this I find nothing, either in his lordship's experiments touching Emission, 
or Immateriate Virtues, from the Minds and Spirits of Men ; or in those con- 
cerning the secret v#tue of Sympathy and Antipathy. Wherefore I forbear to 
speak further in an argument about which I am so much in the dark. 

I proceed to subjects upon which I can speak with much more assurance, his 
inimitable writings. 

Note. — The late Lord Stanhope invented an instrument of this nature to dis- 
cover the insensible perspiration. It consisted of a small crystal cylinder, very 
convex at one end, and less convex at the other, and when the large convexity 
was pressed upon the skin it was immediately beaded with perspiration as with 
dew, which was perceptible by looking through the great convexity. I once had 
the instrument in my possession. I have seen other inventions of the same 
nature, as small fish made of a thin horny substance, which, with the heating 
of the hand, became apparently animated. — B. M. 



NOTES Z Z — 3 A — 3 B. 

Z Z. Life, p. xxxiv. 

Mr. Frauds Bacon to the Queen. 

Most gracious and admirable Sovereign, — As I do acknowledge a providence 
of God towards me, that findeth it expedient for me tolerare jugum in juventute 
mea ; so this present arrest of mine, by his divine majesty, from your majesty's 
service, is not the least affliction, that I have proved ; and I hope your majesty 
doth conceive, that nothing under mere impossibility could have detained me 
from earning so gracious a vail, as it pleased your majesty to give me. But 
your majesty's service, by the grace of God, shall take no lack thereby; and, 
thanks to God, it hath lighted upon him that may be best spared. Only the 
discomfort is mine, w-ho nevertheless have the private comfort, that in the time 
I have been made acquainted with this service, it hath been* my hap to stumble 
upon somewhat unseen, which may import the same, as I made my Lord 
Keeper acquainted before my going. So leaving it to God to make a good end 
of a hard beginning, and most humbly craving your majesty's pardon for pre- 
suming to trouble you, I recommend your sacred majesty to God's tenderest 
preservation. Your sacred Majesty's in most humble obedience and devotion, 

From Huntingdon, this 20th of July, 1594. Fr. Bacon. 

3 A. Life, p. xxxv. 

This appears by a letter to Burleigh, in which, thanking him for former obli- 
gations, he says, " Together with your lordship's attempt to give me way by the 
remove of Mr. Solicitor, in which he says : And now seeing it hath pleased her 
majesty to take knowledge of this my mind, and to vouchsafe to appropriate me 
unto her service, preventing any desert of mine with her princely liberality ; 
first, I humbly do beseech your lordship to present to her majesty my more than 
humble thanks for the same : and withal, having regard to mine own unwor- 
thiness to receive such favour, and to the small possibility in me to satisfy and 
answer what her majesty conceiveth, I am moved to become a most humble 
suitor to her majesty, that this benefit also may be affixed unto the other." 

3 B. Life, p. xxxv. 

Baker's MSS. Our register is a blank, and nothing entered from the year 
1589 to the year 1602 ; but from Bedel Ingram's book, of equal authority in 
history, though not in law, we have this account : — An. 1594. Jul. 27. Whereas 
there is something purposed to be done at this meeting more than usual at con- 
vocations. Maye it therefore please yow, that this convocation be changed into 
a congregation, and the same to be effectual to no other intent then for the dis- 
patch of such matters as shall presently be propounded hearin, and by your 
approbation and consent, be granted and concluded. This being passed, the 
Vicechan. dissolved the convocation, and the bedell called a congregation imme- 
diate, at which congregation this grace following was passed. Hacet vobis, ut 
Mr. Franciscus Bacon armiger, honorandi et nobilis viri domini Nicholai 
Bacon militis, magni Angliae sigilli custodis, ante aliquot annos defuncti, filius, 
post studium decern annorum, partem in hac academia nostra partim in trans- 
marinis regionibus, in dialecticis, philosophicis, Graecis Latinisque Uteris, ac 
caeteris, humanioribus disciplinis sufficiat ei, ut cooptetur in ordinem magis- 
trorum in artibus : ita tamen ut ad nullas ceremonias, ad magisterii gradum 
pertinentes coarctetur ; sed tantum in admissione sua juramentum praestet, de 
regies majestatis suprema authoritate in primis agnoscenda et colenda, et fidem 
del D. Procan de observandis statutis, privilegiis, et consuetudinibus hujus 
universitatis approbatis. 

Concess. 27 Julii, 1594. 

Franciscus Bacon, Mr. in artibus, Jul. 27. Mr. Ingram's book. 



NOTES 3 C 3 D 3 E 3 F 3 G. 

3 C. Life, p. xxxv. 

The 'Elements of the Common Lawes of England, branched into a Double Tract: 
the one containing a Collection of some principall Rules and Maximes of the 
Common Law, with their Latitude and Extent. Explicated for the more facile 
Introduction of such as are studiously addicted to that noble prof ession. The other 
the Use of the Common Law, for the preservation of our Persons, Goods, and 
Good Names. According to the Lawes and. Customes of this Land. By the late 
Sir Francis Bacon, knight, Lo. Verulam, and Viscount S. Alban. Videre Vtilitas. 
London, Printed by the Assignees of Iohn More, Esquire. 1630. 

Editions were also published in 1636 and 1639. 

3 D. Life, p. xxxv. 

Regula I. Injure non remota causa, sed proximo, spectatur. It were infinite 
for the law to judge the causes of causes, and their impulsions one of another ; 
therefore it contenteth itself with the immediate cause, and judgeth of acts by 
that, without looking to any further degree. 

As if an annuity be granted pro consilio impenso et impendendo, and the grantee 
commit treason, whereby he is imprisoned, so that the grantor cannot have 
access unto him for his counsel : yet, nevertheless, the annuity is not deter- 
mined by this non-feasance ; yet it was the grantee's act and default to commit 
the treason, whereby the imprisonment grew : but the law looketh not so far, 
but excuseth him, because the not giving counsel was compulsory, and not 
voluntary, in regard of the imprisonment. 

He proceeds in the same manner to prove by other instances the rule which 
he had established. 

3 E. Life, p. xxxv. 

The preface continues thus : Having collected three hundred of them, I 
thought good, before I brought them all into form, to publish some few, that by 
the taste of other men's opinions in this first, I might receive either approbation 
in mine own course, or better advice for the altering of the other which remain ; 
for it is great reason that that which is intended to the profit of others, should be 
guided by the conceits of others. 

3 F. Life, p. xxxv. 

Atque quemadmodum vulgaris logica, quae regit res per syllogismum, non 
tantum ad naturales, sed ad omnes scientias pertinet ; ita et nostra quae pro- 
cedit per inductionem, omnia complectitur. Tam enim historiam et tabulas 
inueniendi conficimus de ira, metu, et verecundia, et similibus ; ac etiam de 
exemplis rerum civilium ; nee minus de motibus mentalibus memoriae, compo- 
sitionis et divisionis, judicii, etreliquorum : quam de calido etfrigido, aut luce, 
aut vegetatione, aut similibus. 

3 G. Life, p. xxxvi. 

I hold every man a debtor to his profession ; from the which, as men of 
course, do seek to receive countenance and profit, so ought they of duty to en- 
deavour themselves, by way of amends, to be a help and ornament thereunto. 
This is performed in some degree by the honest and liberal practice of a pro- 
fession, when men shall carry a respect not to descend into any course that is 
corrupt and unworthy thereof, and preserve themselves free from the abuses 
wherewith the same profession is noted to be infected ; but much more is this 
peformed if a man be able to visit and strengthen the roots and foundation of 
the science itself ; thereby not only gracing it in reputation and dignity, but 
also amplifying it in perfection and substance. Having, therefore, from the 



NOTES 3 G — 3 II 3 I. 

beginning come to the study of the laws of this realm, with a desire no less, if I 
could attain unto it, that the same laws should be the better for my industry, 
than that myself should be the better for the knowledge of them ; I do not find 
that, by mine own travel, without the help of authority, 1 can in any kind 
confer so profitable an addition unto that science. 

The same grateful feeling is expressed by Sir E. Coke, who says, " If this or 
any other of my works, in any sort, by the goodness of Almighty God, who 
hath enabled roe hereunto, tend to some discharge of that great obligation of 
duty wherein I am bound to my profession, I shall reap some fruits from the 
tree of life, and I shall receive sufficient compensation for all my labours." 

Different Editions and MSS. 

Editions of it were published in 1636 and 1639 ; of this work there are the 
following MSS. In Harleian MSS. vol. 2—227, there is MSS. of Maxims of 
the Law, written by Sir Francis Bacon, and by him inscribed to Queen Eliza- 
beth, 8th January, 1596. There are some other observations relating to law at 
the end of the book.— Use of the Law, Cat. 291. Sloane's MSS. 

There is also a MSS. in the University Library, Cambridge, entitled "Maxims 
of Law." 

It is thus noticed by Archbishop Tennison, when enumerating Lord Bacon's 
law works in the Baconiana :— The fourteenth is, the Elements of the Common 
Laws of England, in a double tract : the one of the rules and maxims of the 
common law, with their latitude and extent. The other, of the use of common 
law, for the preservation of our persons, goods, and good names. These he dedi- 
cated to her majesty, whose the laws were, whilst the collection was his. 

3 H. Life, p. xxxvi. 

Sir, — I have thought the contemplation of the art military harder than the 
execution. But now I see where the number is great, compounded of sea and 
land forces, the most tyrones, and almost all voluntaries, the officers equal 
almost in age, quality, and standing in the wars, it is hard for any man to 
approve himself a good commander. So great is my zeal to omit nothing, and 
so short my sufficiency to perform all, as besides my charge, myself doth afflict 
myself. For I cannot follow the precedents of our dissolute armies, and my 
helpers are a little amazed with me, when they are come from governing a little 

troop to a great; and from to all the great spirits of our state. And 

sometimes I am as much troubled with them, as with all the troops. But 
though these be warrants for my seldom writing, yet they shall be no excuses 
for my fainting industry. I have written to my Lord Keeper and some other 
friends to have care of you in my absence. And so commending you to God's 
happy and heavenly protection, I rest your true friend, Essex. 
Plymouth, this 17th of May, 1596. 

As specimens of the correspondence between them, see Bacon's letter to 
Essex, vol. xii. p. 17, and Bacon's letter, ibid. p. 20. 

3 I. Life, p. xxxvii. 

The following account of the Essays, collected with much labour, will, it is 
hoped, be acceptable to the reader. 

First edition, 1597. 

Essayes. Religious Meditations. Places of perswasion and disswasion. Seene 
and allowed. At London Printed for Humfrey Hooper, and are to be sold at 
the black Beare in Chancery Lane. 1597. 

The first edition of the Essays was published in the year 1597. 

The Epistle Dedicatorie. " To M. Anthony Bacon his deare Brother. 

" Louing and beloued brother I do now like some that haue an orcharde il 
neighbored, that gather their fruit before it is ripe, to preuent stealing. These 
fragments of my conceits were going to print: to labour the stay of them had 
bene troublesome, and subiect to interpretation : to let them passe had bin to 



NOTE 3 I. 

aduentur the wrong they mought receiue by vntrue coppies, or by some garnish- 
ment which it mought please any one that shold set them forth to bestow upon 
them. Therefore I helde it best discretion to publish them my selfe as they 
passed long agoe from my pen without any further disgrace, then the weakenes 
of the author. And as I did euer hold there mought be as great a vanitie in 
retiring and withdrawing mens conceits (except they be of some nature) from 
the world, as in obtruding them : so in these particulars I haue played my selfe 
the inquisitor, and find nothing to my vuderstanding in them contrary, or infec- 
tious to the state of religion, or manners, but rather (as I suppose) medicinable. 
Onely I disliked now to put them out, because they will be like the late newe 
halfepence, which though the siluer were good, yet the pieces were small. But 
since they would not stay with their master, but wold needs trauel abroad, I 
haue preferred them to you, that are next myself, dedicating them, such as they 
are, to our loue, in the depth whereof (I assure you) I somtimes wish your 
infirmities transslated upon my selfe, that her maiesty mought haue the seruice 
of so active and able a mind, and I mought bee with excuse confined to these 
contemplations and studies for which I am fittest, so commende I you to the 
preseruation of the diuine maiestie. From my chamber at Grayes Inne, this 
30 of Ianuary, 1597. 

Your entire louing brother, Fran. Bacon." 
It consists of ten Essays. 

1. OfStudie. 6. Of Expence. 

2. Of Discourse. 7. Of Regimen and Health. 

3. Of Ceremonies and Respects. 8. Of Honour and Reputation. 

4. Of Followers and Friends. 9. Of Faction. 

5. OfSutors. 10. Of Negotiating. 

The volume is in 12mo. and consists of thirteen double pages, not very cor- 
rectly printed. Ex. gr. In the table of contents the first essay is " of Studie ;" 
in the body of the work it is " of Studies." So again, in the table of contents, 
the fifth essay is " Sutors ; " in the body of the work it is " of Sutes," &c. &c. 
Lord Bacon's favorite style was, I am inclined to think, in aphorisms, as he 
states in various parts of his works, and particularly in the advancement of 
learning under the head of Tradition, where, amongst other styles, he considers 
" style methodical or in aphorisms : " and, as may be seen in the Novum Or- 
ganum, which is composed wholly in aphorisms. This first edition of the Es- 
says, although apparently in continued discourse, is really severed and in apho- 
risms. The following is an exact copy of part of the first essay, and they are 
all separated in the same manner. 

IF Reade not to contradict, nor to believe, but to waigh and consider. 

IF Some bookes are to bee tasted, others to be swallowed, and some 

few to be chewed and disgested : that is some bookes are to be read only 

in partes ; others to be read but cursorily, and some few to be read 

wholly and with diligence and attention. 

1F Histories make men wise, poets wittie, the mathematicks subtle, 

naturall philosophic deepe : morall grave, logicke and rhetorick able to 

contend. 

There are two copies of this edition in the University library at Cambridge : 

and there is Archbishop Sancroft's copy in Emanuel library : there is a copy in 

the Bodleian, and I have a copy. 

This small volume contains, as appears by the title-page, not only the essays, 
but Religious Meditations and Places of Persuasion and Disswasion. The reli- 
gious meditations are in Latin, and are not printed, as the essays are, for 
Hooper: and the paging is not continued from the essays, but begins page 1. 
The following is a copy of the title-page : Meditationes Sacraz. Londini. Ex- 
cudebut Iohannes Windet, 1597. At the conclusion of the volume is, " Printed 
at London by John Windet for Humfrey Hooper, 1597." So that, although the 
name of Hooper does not appear in the title prefixed to the Meditationes Sacrae, 
it is evident that Windet was the printer for Hooper. 

At the conclusion of the Meditationes Sacrae, a tract entitled " Of the Coa- 
lers of Good and Evil, a Fragment," is annexed. The paging is continued from 



NOTE 3 T. 

the Meditationes Sacrae. The following is a copy of the title-page : Of the 
Coulers of Good and Euill, a Fragment. 1597. In the Advancement of 
Learning, under the head of Rhetoric, there are one or two specimens of these 
colours: and, under the same head in the treatise De Augmentis, they are 
much enlarged. 

Second Edition, 1598. 

Essaies. Religious Meditations. Places of Perswasion and Disswasion. Seene 
and allowed. London, printed for Humfrey Hooper, and are to bee solde at the 
Blacke Beare in Chauncery Lane, 1598. This is a 12mo. of forty-nine pages. 
It is nearly a transcript of the first edition, except that the Meditationes Sacrae 
are translated into English, and the separation into aphorisms is discontinued ; 
the paging continues through the whole work ; but, at the end of the Medita- 
tions, there is the following title-page : Of the Colours of Good and Evill, a 
Fragment, 1598. 

In the Lansdown manuscripts in the British Museum there is a manuscript, 
in antient writing, of this or the first edition of the Essays. It is in vol. ii. 
p. 173. It cannot, I think, be the original MS. as there are not titles to the 
different essays, but they are written, and not by the same hand, in the margin. 

There is also in the Harleian MSS. 6797, a MS. of two Essays, of Faction 
and of Negotiating, with cross lines drawn through them. At the conclusion of 
the volume there is, " Imprinted at London by John Windet for Humphrey 
Hooper, 1598.'' As the printers and publishers are the same in this edition and 
in the edition of 1597, it seems probable that this edition was sanctioned by 
Lord Bacon. 

Third Edition, 1606. 

Essaies. Religious Meditations. Places of Perswasion and Disswasion. Seene 
and allowed. Printed at London for Iohn laggard, dwelling in Fleete Streete, 
at the Hand and Starre, neere Temple Barre, 1606. This is in 12mo. and is not 
paged. It is a transcript of the previous editions, but was I suspect pirated. 

1st. It is not published by Lord Bacon's publisher ; and it will be seen, in 
the progress of his Essays, that when an edition was published by Bacon, it 
was regularly followed by an edition published by Jaggard. 

2nd. The dedication in 1597 is to M. Anthony Bacon, and in this edition in 
1606 it is to Maister Anthony Bacon. 

3dly. The signature in 1597 is Fran. Bacon, in this of 1606 is Francis Bacon. 

Fourth Edition, 1612. 
The next edition was in 1612. It is entitled, The Essaies of Sr Francis 
Bacon, Knight, the King's Sollicker Generall. Imprinted at London by Iohn 
Beale, 1612. It was the intention of Sir Francis to have dedicated this edition 
to Henry Prince of Wales, but he was prevented by the death of the prince on 
the 6th of November in that year. This appears by the following letter : 

To the most high and excellent prince, Henry, Prince of Wales, Duke of Corn- 
wall, and Earl of Chester. 
It may please your Highness, — Having divided my life into the contemplative 
and active part, I am desirous to give his majesty and your highness of the 
fruits of both, simple though they be. To write just treatises, requireth leisure 
in the writer, and leisure in the reader, and therefore are not so fit, neither in 
regard of your highness's princely affairs, nor in regard of my continual service ; 
which is the cause that hath made me choose to write certain brief notes, set 
down rather significantly than curiously, which I have called Essays. The 
word is late, but the thing is ancient ; for Seneca's epistles to Lucilius, if you 
mark them well, are but essays, that is, dispersed meditations, though conveyed 
in the form of epistles. These labours of mine, I know, cannot be worthy of 
your highness, for what can be worthy of you 1 But my hope is, they may be 
as grains of salt, that will rather give you an appetite than ofFend you with 
satiety. And although they handle those things wherein both men's lives and 
their persons are most conversant; yet what I have attained I know not; but I 
have endeavoured to make them not vulgar, but of a nature, whereof a man 
shall find much in experience, and little in books ; so as they are neither repe- 



NOTE 3 I. 

titions nor fancies. But, however, I shall most humbly desire your highness to 
accept them in gracious part, and to conceive, that if I cannot rest, but must 
shew my dutiful and devoted affection to your highness in these things which 
proceed from myself, I shall be much more ready to do it in performance of any 
of your princely commandments. And so wishing your highness all princely 
felicity, I rest your Highness' most humble servant, 

1612. Fr. Bacon. 

It was dedicated as follows : 

To my loving Brother, Sir John Constable, Knight.* 

My last Essaies I dedicated to my deare brother Master Anthony Bacon, 
who is with God. Looking amongst my papers this vacation, I found others of 
the same nature : which if I myselfe shall not suffer to be lost, it seemeth the 
world will not ; by the often printing of the former. Missing my brother, I found 
you next, in respect of bond both of neare alliance, and of straight friendship 
and societie, and particularly of communication in studies. Wherein I must 
acknowledge my selfe beholding to you. For as my businesse found rest in my 
contemplations ; so my contemplations ever found rest in your louing conference 
and judgment. So wishing you all good,. I remaine 

Your louing brother and friend, Fra. Bacon. 



The Table of Essays is, 

1. Of Religion. 

2. Of Death. 

3. Of Goodnes and goodnes of 

nature. 

4. Of Cunning. 

5. Of Marriage and single life. 

6. Of Parents and Children. 

7. Of Nobilitie. 

8. Of Great place. 

9. Of Empire. 

10. OfCounsell. 

11. Of Dispatch. 

12. OfLoue. 

13. Of Friendsbippe. 

14. Of Atheisme. 

15. Of Superstition. 

16. Of Wisdome for a Mans selfe. 

17. Of Regiment of Health. 

18. Of Expences. 

19. Of Discourse. 



21. Of Riches. 

22. Of Ambition. 

23. Of Young men and age. 

24. OfBeautie. 

25. Of Deformitie. 

26. Of nature in Man. 

27. Of Custome and Education. 

28. Of Fortune. 

29. Of Studies. 

30. Of Ceremonies and Respects. 

31. Of Su tors. 

32. Of Followers. 

33. Of Negociating. 

34. Of Faction. 

35. Of Praise. 

36. Of Iudicature. 

37. Of vaine glory. 

38. Of greatnes of Kingdomes. 

39. Of the publike. 

40. Of Warre and peace. 



20. Of Seeming wise. 

It is an octavo of 241 pages; and the two last essays " Of the Publique," 
and " Of War and Peace," although mentioned in the table cf contents, are not 
contained in the body of the work.f 

This edition contains all the Essays which are in the preceding editions, 
except the Essay " Of Honor and Reputation :" and the title in the former 
editions of the Essay " Of Followers and Friends," is in this edition " Of Fol- 
lowers," and there is a separate Essay " Of Friendship." The essays in italics 
are in the former editions. 

These essays are more extensive than the essays in the preceding editions, 
according to the manner of the author, who says, " I always alter when I add ; 

* Francis Bacon married Alice Burnham, and Sir John Constable married 
her sister, Dorothy Burnham. In Lord Bacon's will, he says, Sir John Con- 
stable, Knight, my brother-in-law ; and he nominates him as one of his execu- 
tors. 

t There is a copy in the British Museum, and in the Bodleian ; and I have 
a copy. 



NOTE 3 I. 

so that nothing- is finished till all is finished."* As a specimen, the Essay 
" Of Study," in the first edition ends with the words " able to contend." The 
edition of 1612 is the same as the former edition, but it thus continues: 
" Abeunt studia in mores ;" " nay, there is no stond or impediment in the wit, 
but may be wrought out by fit studies : like as diseases of the body may have 
appropriate exercises ; bowling is good for the stone and reins, shooting for the 
lungs and breast, gentle walking for the stomach, riding for the head, and the 
like ; so if a man's wit be wandering, let him study the mathematics ; for in 
demonstrations, if his wit be called away never so little, he must begin again ; 
if his wit be not apt to distinguish or find differences, let him study the school- 
men, for they are ' Cymini sectores ;' if he be not apt to beat over matters, and 
to call upon one thing to prove and illustrate another, let him study the lawyer's 
cases j so every defect of the mind may have a special receipt." 

Fifth Edition, Jaggard, 1612. 
Essaies, Religious Meditations, Places of perswasion and disswasion. Scene and 
allowed. Printed at London for John Jaggard, dwelling in Fleete-streete at the 
Hand and Starre neere Temple barre. 1612. 

This edition may be divided into two parts : 



The first part consisting, 



The second part consisting 



1. Of the Essays which were contained in the 
edition of 1606. 

2. Religious Meditations. 

3. Places of Perswasion and Disswasion. 
\ Of such Essays in the edition of 1612 as are 

not inserted in the first part. 
It seems that Jaggard supposed, that because the titles of certain essays in 
the different editions were the same, the essays were not altered ; but it was 
Lord Bacon's custom, as stated in his letter to Mr. Matthews, with his book 
" De Sapientia Veterum," " always to alter when I add, so that nothing is 
finished till all is finished." This was the custom of Lord Bacon, a custom 
most probably ever attendant upon the fertility of genius. Mr. Jaggard, there- 
fore, seems to have imagined that, in substance, his edition was as complete as 
the edition published in the same year by Lord Bacon. By comparing either of 
the essays in the edition of 1606 (" Of Studies," for instance), the error will 
appear. This edition, therefore, although it consists of 39 Essays (viz. 10 and 
29), does not contain the perfect essays upon the same subjects which are in 
the edition published by Lord Bacon in 1612. 

The following table will exhibit the Essays contained in this edition. 

The first part consists of the Essays in the edition of 1606. 

The second part consists of 29 of the essays upon new subjects which are 
contained in the edition published by Lord Bacon in 1612 ; so that this consists 
of 39 Essa}fs, but the edition published by Lord Bacon in 1612, although nomi- 
nally containing 40 Essays, really consisted only of 38, the two last in the title 
page not being inserted in the body of the work. 

* " To Mr. Matthews; along with the Book De Sapientia Veterum. — I 
heartily thank you for your letter of the 24th of August, from Salamanca ; and, 
in recompence, send you a little work of mine, that has begun to pass the world. 
They tell me my Latin is turned into silver, and become current. Had you 
been here, you should have been my inquisitor before it came forth : but I think 
the greatest inquisitor in Spain will allow it. One thing you must pardon me, 
if I make no haste to believe, that the world should be grown to such an 
ecstasy, as to reject truth in philosophy, because the author dissents in religion ; 
no more than they do by Aristotle or Averroes. My great work goes forward ; 
and after my manner, I always alter when I add : so that nothing is finished 
till all is finished. This I have wrote in the midst of a term and parliament; 
thinking no time so possessed, but that I should talk of these matters with so 
good and dear a friend. — Gray's Inn, Feb. 27, 1610." 



Titles of 1606, and 1st 

part of laggard's edition 

of 1612. 

1. OfStudie. 

2. Of Discourse. 

3. Of Ceremonies and 

Respects. 

4. Of Followers and 

Friends. 

5. OfSutors. 

6. Of Expence. 

7. Of Regiment of 

Health. 

8. Of Honor and Repu- 

tation. 

9. Of Faction. 
10. Of Negotiating. 



NOTE 3 I. 

Titles o/1612. 
Beale. 

1. Of Religion. 

2. Of Death. 

3. Of Goodnesse and 

Goodnesse of Nature. 

4. Of Cunning. 

5. Of Marriage and Sin- 

gle Life. 

6. Of Parents and Chil- 

dren. 

7. OfNobilitie. 

8. Of areat Place. 



Titles of 1612, 

in 2nd part af Jaggard's 

edition. 

1. Of Religion. 

2. Of Death. 

3. Of Goodnesse and 

Goodnesse of Nature. 

4. Of Cunning. 

5. Of Marriage and Sin- 

gle Life. 

6. Of Parents and Chil- 

dren. 

7. OfNobilitie. 

8. Of great Place. 



9. Of Empire. 9. 

10. Of Counsel. 10. 

11. Of Dispatch. 11. 

12. Of Love. 12. 

13. Of Friendship. 13. 

14. Of Atheisme. 14. 

15. Of Superstition. 15. 

16. Of Wisdom for a 16. 

Man's self. 

17. Of Regiment of 

Health. 

18. Of Expences. 

19. Of Discourse. 

20. Of seeming wise. 17. 

21. Of Riches. 18. 

22. Of Ambition. 19. 

23. Of Young Men and 20. 

Age. 

24. OfBeautie. 21. 

25. Of Deformitie. 22. 

26. Of Nature in Men. 23. 

27. Of Custome and 24. 

Education. 

28. Of Fortune. 25. 

29. Of Studies. 

30. Of Ceremonies and 
Respects. 

31. OfSutors. 

32. Of Followers. 

33. Of Negotiating. 

34. Of Faction. 

35. Of Praise. 26. 

36. Of Judicature. 27. 

37. Of Vaine Glory. 28. 

38. Of Greatnesse of 29. 

Kingdoms. 

39. Of the Publick. 

40. Of Warre and Peace. 



Of Empire. 
Of Counsel. 
Of Dispatch. 
Of Love. 
Of Friendship. 
Of Atheisme. 
Of Superstition. 
Wisdom for a Man's 
self. 



Of seeming wise. 

Of Riches. 

Of Ambition. 

Of Young Men and 
Age. 

Of Beautie. 

Of Deformitie. 

Of Nature in Men. 

Of Custom and Edu- 
cation. 

Of Fortune. 



Of Praise. 
Of Judicature. 
Of Vaine Glory. 
Of the Greatness of 
Kingdomes. 



Sixth Edition, 1613. 

The next edition was in 1613. It is entitled, The Essaies of Sir Francis Bacon, 

Knight, the Kings Aturney Generall, his Religious Meditations. Places of Per- 

swasion and Dissuasion. Scene and allowed. Printed at London for John laggard, 

dwelling at the Hand and Starre, betweene the two Temple Gates, 1613. It is a 



NOTE 3 I. 

transcript of the edition of 1612, with the erroneous entries in the table of con- 
tents of the two essays, " Of the Publique" and " Of Warre and Peace," 
which are omitted in the body of the work ; but it contains a transcript from the 
editions of 1597 and 1606, of the essay "Of Honor and Reputation," which 
is omitted in the edition of 1612. This edition, probably, originated in lag- 
gard's having discovered his error with respect to the edition of 1612, and his 
hope to make it more complete by the addition of the essay of " Honor and 
Reputation," without inquiring whether it was in substance incorporated in 
either of the new essays in Lord Bacon's edition of 1612. Does not this seem 
further evidence that these editions were pirated 1 

Seventh Edition, 1614. 

The Essaies of Sir Francis Bacon, Knight, the Kings Atturney Generall. His 
Religious Meditations. Places of Perswasion and Disswasion. Seene and allowed. 
Edinbvrgh, Printed by Andro Hart. 1614. 

This is, as it seems, a transcript of Jaggard's edition of 1613, consisting of 
41 essays in the table of contents, and omitting 39 and 40 in the body of the 
work, and containing the Essay 41, "-Of Honor and Reputation." The Essay 
" Of Superstition" in this edition of 1614 is entitled 12, but it ought to be 15. 
There is the same error in the edition of 1613 : so too the Essay " Of Followers 
and Friends" is, in both, entitled 33, but it ought to be 32. 

Eighth Edition, 1624. 

The Essaies of Sir Francis Bacon, Knight, the Kings Atturney Generall. His 
Religious Meditations. Places of Perswasion and Disswasion. Seene and allowed. 
Printed at London, by I. D. for Elizabeth Jaggard, at the Hand and Starre, 
neere the Middle Temple gate, 1624. 

This edition is copied from the edition of 1613. The error with respect to 
the title of the Essay of " Followers and Friends" is corrected in this edition ; 
as in this edition it is, as it ought to have been in the edition of 1613-32. As 
this is published by Jaggard, it is probably by the widow of John Jaggard, as it 
is printed by I. D. for Elizabeth Jaggard. 

Ninth Edition, 1625. 

The Essayes or Covnsels, Civill and Morall, of Francis Lo. Vervlam, Viscovnt 
St. Alban. Newly enlarged. London, Printed by Iohn Haviland for Hanna 
Barret and Richard Whitaher, and are to be sold at the signe of the King's 
head in Paul's Churchyard. 1625. 

This edition is a small quarto of 340 pages ; it clearly was published by Lord 
Bacon. It was published in 1625, and in the next year, 1626, Lord Bacon 
died. It is dedicated in the following dedication, to the Duke of Buckingham : 

To the Right Honorable my very good Lo. the Duke of Buckingham his Grace, 
Lo. High Admirall of England. 

Excellent Lo. — Salomon saies, A good name is as a precious oyntment ; and 
I assure myselfe, such wil your grace's name bee, with posteritie. For your 
fortune and merit both, haue beene eminent. And you haue planted things 
that are like to last. I doe now publish my Essayes ; which, of all other 
workes, have beene most currant : for that, as it seemes, they come home to 
mens businesse and bosomes. I haue enlarged them, both in number and 
weight ; so that they are indeed a new work. I thought it therefore agreeable 
to my affection, and obligation to your grace, to prefix your name before them, 
both in English and in Latine. For I doe conceiue, that the Latine volume 
of them (being in the vniuersal language) may last as long as bookes last. 
My Instauration I dedicated to the king : my Historie of Henry the Seventh, 
(which I haue now also translated into Latine) and my portions of Naturall 
History, to the prince : and these I dedicate to your grace : being of the best 
fruits, that by the good encrease which God gives to my pen and labours, I 
could yeeld. God leade your grace by the hand. Your Graces most obliged 
and faithfull seruant, Fr. St. Alban. 

Of this edition Lord Bacon sent a copy to the Marquis Fiat. Baconiana, 201. 



NOTE 3 I. 

A Letter of the Lord Bacon's, in French, to the Marquis Fiat, relating to 

his Essays. 

Monsieur l'Ambassadeur mon File, — Voyant que vostre excellence faict et 
traite manages, non seulement entre les princes d'Angleterre et de France, 
mais aussi entre les langues (puis que faictes traduire non liure de l'Advance- 
ment des Sciences en Francois) i' ai bien voulu vous envoyer mon liure der- 
nierement imprime que i' avois pourveu pour vous, mais i' estois en doubte, de 
le vous envoyer, pour ce qu'il estoit escrit en Anglois. Mais a' cest' heure 
pour la raison susdicte ie le vous envoye. C est un recompilement de mes 
Essays Morales et Civiles ; mais tellement enlargies et enrichies, tant de 
nombre que de poix, que c' est de fait un oeuvre nouveau. Ie vous baise les 
mains, et reste, vostre tres affectionee ami, ex tres humble serviteur. 

The same in English, by the Publisher. 

My Lord Ambassador, my Son, — Seeing that your excellency makes and 
treats of marriages, not only betwixt the princes of France and England, but 
also betwixt their languages (for you have caused my book of the Advancement 
of Learning to be translated into French), I was much inclined to make you a 
present of the last book which I published, and which I had in readiness for 
you. I was sometimes in doubt whether I ought to have sent it to you, because 
it was written in the English tongue. But now, for that very reason, I send it 
to you. It is a recompilement of my Essays, Moral and Civil ; but in such 
manner enlarged and enriched both in number and weight, that it is in effect a 
new work. I kiss your hands, and remain your most affectionate friend and 
most humble servant, &c. 



rhe 


titles of the Essays in this edition 


are as follows : 


1. 


Truth. 


30. 


Regiment of Health. 


2. 


Death. 


31. 


Suspicion. 


3. 


Unity in Religion. 


32. 


Discourse. 


4. 


Revenge. 


33. 


Plantations. 


5. 


Adversity. 


34. 


Riches. 


6. 


Simulation and Dissimulation. 


35. 


Prophecies. 


7. 


Parents and Children. 


36. 


Ambition. 


8. 


Marriage and Single Life. 


37. 


Masks and Triumphs. 


9, 


Envy. 


38. 


Nature in Men. 


10. 


Love. 


39. 


Custom and Education. 


11. 


Great Place. 


40. 


Fortune. 


12. 


Boldness. 


41. 


Usury. 


13. 


Goodness, and Goodness of 


42. 


Youth and Age. 




Nature. 


43. 


Beauty. 


14. 


Nobility. 


44. 


Deformity. 


15. 


Seditions and Troubles. 


45. 


Building. 


16. 


Atheism. 


46. 


Gardens. 


17. 


Superstition. 


47. 


Negociating. 


18. 


Travel. 


48. 


Followers and Friends. 


19. 


Empire. 


49. 


Suitors. 


20. 


Counsel. 


50. 


Studies. 


21. 


Delays. 


51. 


Faction. 


22. 


Cunning. 


52. 


Ceremonies and Respects, 


23. 


Wisdom for a Man's self. 


53. 


Praise. 


24. 


Innovations. 


54. 


Vain Glory. 


25. 


Dispatch. 


55. 


Honour and Reputation. 


26. 


Seeming wise. 


56. 


Judicature. 


27. 


Friendship. 


57. 


Anger. 


28. 


Expense. 


58. 


Vicissitudes of Things. 


29. 


The true Greatness of King- 
doms and Estates. 







NOTE 3 I, 

The following tables will shew the variations in the titles of the Essays in 
the different editions : 













1625. 






1597. 




1612. 


Fig 


ures to the right are 


Order 








Essays of 1597 in 


order in 1612. Essays 


of 








Italics. 


i 


if ] 597 in Italics. 


1612. 


1. 


Of Study. 


1. 


Of Religion. 


1. 


Of Truth. 


1 


2. 


Of Discourse. 


2. 


Of Death. 


2. 


Of Death. 


2 


3. 


Of Ceremonies and 3. 


Of Goodnesse anc 


1 3. 


Of Vnitie in Reli- 






Respects. 




Goodnesse of Na- 
ture. 




gion. 




4. 


Of Followers and 


4. 


Of Cunning. 


4. 


Of Revenge. 






Friends. 












5. 


Of Sutors. 


5. 


Of Marriage and 
Single Life. 


5. 


Of Adversitie. 




6. 


Of Expence. 


6. 


Of Parents and 
Children. 


6. 


Of Simulation and 
Dissimulation. 




7. 


Of Regiment of 
Health. 


7. 


Of Nobilitie. 


7. 


Of Parents and 
Children. 


6 


8. 


Of Honor and Re- 
putation. 


8. 


Of Great Place. 


8. 


Of Marriage and 
Single Life. 


5 


9. 


Of Faction. 


9. 


Of Empire. 


9. 


Of Envie. 




0. 


Of Negotiating. 


10. 


Of Counsell. 


10. 


Of Love. 


12 






11. 


Of Dispatch. 


11. 


Of Great Place. 


8 






12. 


Of Love. 


12. 


Of Boldnesse. 








13. 


Of Friendshippe. 


13. 


Of Goodnesse and 
Goodnesse of Na- 
ture. 


3 






14. 


Of Atheisme. 


14. 


Of Nobilitie. 


7 






15. 


Of Superstition. 


15. 


Of Sedition and 
Troubles. 








16. 


Of Wisdome for a 
Man's self. 


16. 


Of Atheisme. 


14 






17. 


Of Regiment of 
Health. 


17. 


Of Superstition. 


15 






18. 


Of Expence. 


18. 


Of Travaile. 








19. 


Of Discourse. 


19. 


Of Empire. 


9 






20. 


Of seeming wise. 


20. 


Of Counsell. 


10 






21. 


Of Riches. 


21. 


Of Delays. 








22. 


Of Ambition. 


22. 


Of Cunning. 


4 






23. 


OfYoungMenand 23. 


Of Wisdome for a 










Age. 




Man's self. 


16 






24. 


Of Beautie. 


24. 


Of Innovation. 








25. 


Of Defoimitie. 


25. 


Of Dispatch. 


11 






26. 


Of Nature in Men 


.26. 


Of seeming wise. 


20 






27. 


Of Custom and 


27. 


Of Friendship. 


13 



Education. 

28. Of Fortune. 28. 

29. Of Studies. 29. 



30. Of Ceremonies and 30. 

Respects. 

31. Of Sutors. 31. 

32. Of Followers. 32. 

33. Of Negotiating. 33. 

34. Of Faction. ^ 34. 

35. Of Praise. 35. 



Of Expence. 1 8 

Of the true Great- 
nesse of Kingdomes 
and Estates. 
Of Regiment of 
Health. 17 

Of Suspicions. 
Of Discourse. 19 

Of Plantations. 
Of Riches. 21 

Of Prophecies. 



1697. 



NOTE 3 I. 

1612 

(continued). 

36. Of Judicature. 36. 

37. Of Vaine Glory. 37. 



Order 
1625 of 

(continued). 1612. 



38. Of Greatnesse of 

Kingdomes. 

39. OfthePublick* 

40. Of Warre and 

Peace.* 



38. 
39. 

40, 

41. 
42. 
43. 
44. 
45. 
46. 
47. 
48. 

49. 
50. 
51. 
52. 

53. 
54. 
55. 

56. 

57. 
58. 



Of Ambition. 

Of Masks and Tri- 
umphs. 

Of Nature in Men. 

Of Custom and 
Education. 

Of Fortune. 

Of Usury. 

Of Youth and Age. 

Of Beautie. 

Of Deformitie. 

Of Building. 

Of Gardens. 

Of Negotiating. 

Of Followers and 
Friends. 

Of Sutors. 

Of Studies. 

Of Faction. 

Of Ceremonies and 
Respects. 

Of Praise. 

Of Vaine Glory. 

Of Honor and Re- 
putation. 

Of Judicature. 

Of Anger. 

Of Vicissitude of 
Things. 



22 



26 



27 

28 



23 
25 



33 

32 
31 
29 
34 

30 
35 
37 



36 



Modem Editions. 

In 1629, three years after the death of Lord Bacon, an edition was published 
by Haviland, by whom the edition of 1625 was published. It is the same as 
the edition of 1625, except that the table of contents in 1629 is arranged alpha- 
betically ; and the Colours of Good and Evil are annexed. Another edition 
was published in 1632 by Haviland, and another in 1639 by Beale. Since 
that time the press has abounded with editions. 

Posthumous Essays. 
There are three posthumous essays : 

1. A Fragment of an Essay of Fame. 

2. Of a King. 

3. On Death. 

Fragment of an Essay on Fame. The authenticity of this tract is indispu- 
table. In the year 1657 Dr. Rawley published, in the first edition of the 
Resuscitatio, " A Fragment of an Essay of Fame," it is noticed in the Baco- 
niana by Archbishop Tennison, in the account of Lord Bacon's works. He 
says, To this book of Essays may be annexed that fragment of an Essay of 
Farce, which is extant already in the Resuscitatio, p. 281. 

Essay of a King. Of the authenticity of this essay, the reader will form his 
own judgment from the following facts : 

1. In the various editions of the Essays published during the life of Lord 
Bacon, there is not any allusion direct or indirect to this essay. 

2. There is not any allusion direct or indirect to this essay by any person 

VOL. XV. 5 



NOTE 3 I. 

who had access to the papers of Lord Bacon. Dr. Rawley does not mention 
it, and he expressly says, in his address to the reader in the Resuscitatio, 
in 1657 : " Having been employed as an amanuensis, or daily instrument, 
to this honourable author, and acquainted with his lordship's conceits, in 
the composing of his works, for many years together, especially in his writing 
time, I conceived that no man could pretend a better interest or claim to 
the ordering of them after his death than myself. For which cause, I have 
compiled in one whatsoever bears the true stamp of his lordship's excellent 
genius, and hath hitherto slept and been suppressed in this present volume, 
not leaving any thing to a future hand, which I found to be of moment, and 
communicable to the public ; save only some few Latin works, which, by God's 
favour and sufferance, shall soon after follow." 

Dr. Rawley's son was chaplain to Archbishop Tennison, who, in his Baco- 
niana, published in 1679, says, " It is my purpose to give a true and plain 
account of the designs and labours of a very great philosopher amongst us ; and 
to offer to the world, in some tolerable method, those remains of his which to 
that end were put into my hands. Something of this hath been done already 
by his lordship himself, and something further hath been added by the Reverend 
Dr. Rawley ; but their remarks lay scattered in divers places, and here they 
are put under one view, and have received very ample enlargements." But the 
Essay of a King is not mentioned by the Archbishop, although, when com- 
menting upon the essays, he notices the " Fragment of an Essay on Fame." 

3. In the century after the death of Lord Bacon, which was in April 1626, 
various spurious works were ascribed to Lord Bacon. Dr. Rawley, in his 
address to the reader in the Resuscitatio, in 1657, says, " It is true that, for some 
of the pieces herein contained, his lordship did not aim at the publication of 
them, but at the preservation only, and prohibiting them from perishing: so as 
to have been reposed in some private shrine or library ; but now for that, 
through the loose keeping of his lordship's papers, divers surreptitious copies 
have been taken, which have since employed the press with sundry corrupt and 
mangled editions ; whereby nothing hath been more difficult than to find the 
Lord Saint Alban in the Lord Saint Alban, and which have presented (some of 
them) rather a fardle of nonsense than any true expressions of his lordship's 
happy vein ; 1 thought myself, in a sort, tied to vindicate these injuries and 
wrongs done to the monuments of his lordship's pen, and at once, by setting 
forth the true and genuine writings themselves, to prevent the like invasions for 
the time to come. And the rather, in regard of the distance of the time since 
his lordship's days, whereby I shall not tread too near upon the heels of truth, 
or of the passages and persons then concerned, I was induced hereunto, which, 
considering the lubricity of life, and for that I account myself to be not now in 
vergentilus, but in prcecipitantibvs annis, I was desirous to hasten. Again, he 
says in the same address : Lastly, if it be objected that some few of the pieces 
whereof this whole consisteth had visited the public light before, it is true that 
they had been obtruded to the world by unknown hands, but with such scars 
and blemishes upon their faces, that they could pass but for a spurious and 
adulterine brood, and not for his lordship's legitimate issue ; and the publishers 
and printers of them, deserve to have an action of defamation brought against 
them by the state of learning, for disgracing and personating his lordship's 
works." 

4. In the year 1642, the political disturbances in England raged in great 
fury. '* The Commons" (says Hume, speaking of the early part of 1642) 
were sensible that monarchical government, which during so many ages had 
been established in England, would soon regain some degree of its former 
dignity, after the present tempest was over blown; nor would all their new 
invented limitations be able totally to suppress an authority to which the nation 
had ever been accustomed. The sword alone, to which all human ordinances 
must submit, could guard their acquired power, and fully ensure to them per- 
sonal safety against the rising indignation of their sovereign : this point, there- 
fore became the chief object of their aims. Hume, vol. vi. p. 420. 

5. In 1642, a tract was published, of which there is a copy in the 



NOTE 3 I. 

British Museum, and of which the following is the title : An Essay of a King, 
with an explanation -what manner of persons those should be that are to execute the 
power or ordinance of the King's Prerogative. Written by the Right Honorable 
Francis, Lord Verulam Viscount Saint Alban. Decemb. 2. London, Printed 
for Richard Best, 1642. 

Immediately following this essay is the tract entitled, An Explanation what 
manner of persons those should be that are to execute the povier or ordinance of the 
King's Prerogative, written by the said Francis Bacon, late Lord Chancellor, 
and Lord of St. Albans. This explanation thus concludes : " And to conclude, 
custom cannot confirm that which is any ways unreasonable of itself. Wisdom 
will not allow that which is many ways dangerous, and no ways profit- 
able. Justice will not approve that government where it cannot be but wrong 
must be commited. Neither can there be any rule by which to try it, nor 
means of reformation of it. Therefore, whosoever desireth government must 
seek such as he is capable of, not such as seemeth to him most easy to execute ; 
for it is apparent that it is easie to him that knoweth not law nor justice to rule 
as he listeth, his will never wanting a power to itself; but it is safe and blame- 
lesse both for the judge and people, and honour to the king, that judges be ap- 
pointed who know the law, and that they be limited to governe according to 
the law." Who can suppose that this was the work of Lord Bacon, or doubt 
the purpose for which, in those tumultuous times, it was composed and ascribed 
to him 1 

6. In 1648, this tract was incorporated in a small 4to volume, of which the 
title page is as follows : The Remaines of the Right Honorable Francis Lord 
Verulan, Viscount of St. Albanes, sometimes Lord Chancellour of England. Being 
Essayes and severall Letters to severall great Personages, and other pieces of 
various and high concernment not heretofore published. A Table whereof for 
the Readers more ease is adjoyned. London : Printed by B. Alsop, for Lavirence 
Chapman, and are to be sold at his Shop neer the Savoy in the Strand. 1648. 

The Table of Contents consists of forty-nine subjects, of which the four first 
are : 

1. An Essay of a King. 

2. An explanation of what manner of persons they should be, that are 

to execute the power or ordinance of the King's Prerogative. 

3. Short notes of Civil Conversation. 

4. An Essay on Death, 

The first article, " An Essay of a King," with its Appendix, " An Explana- 
tion, &c." is a copy of this tract published in 1642 : who the author was does 
not appear, nor is there any preface or address, or explanation of the sources 
from whence the different subjects were selected, or the authority upon which 
they were ascribed to Lord Bacon. That some of them (for instance, the 
opinion respecting the Charter House) were his lordship's is clear : and, but 
for these authentic documents, it is probable that the other publications would 
have fallen stillborn from the press ; but they may have been supported, as 
Machiavel intimates that error is often supported by its alliance to truth, when 
he says, in a passage cited by Lord Bacon, " the kingdom of the clergy had 
been long before at an end, if the reputation and reverence towards the poverty 
of friars had not borne out the scandal of the superfluities and excesses of 
bishops and prelates." Let it not, therefore, be hastily inferred that the essay 
is genuine, because it appears in some good company : in some, not all, for 
the Essay of Death, which has not found any advocate, is in the same volume. 

7. In 1656, a tract was published, of which the following is the title page : 
The Mirrour of State and Eloqnence. Represented in the Incomparable Letters 
of the Famous Sir Francis Bacon, Lord Verulam, St. Albans, to Queene Eliza- 
beth, King James, and other Personages of the highest trust, and honour in the 
three Nations of England, Scotland, and Ireland. Concerning the better and 
more sure Establishment of those Nations in the affaires of Peace and Warre. 
With an ample and admirable accompt of his Faith, written by the express Com- 
mand of King lames : Together with the Character of a true Christian, and 



lS T OTE 3 I. 

some other adjuncts of rare Devotion. London. Printed for Lawrence Chapman, 
and are to be sold at his Shop next doore to the Fountain Taverne in the Strand, 
1646. This is, I conceive, merely a new title page prefixed to the unsold 
copies of the edition of 1 648 : as the publisher is the same ; the contents are 
the same ; every page is the same ; and the table of errata, at the conclusion of 
the volume, is the same. 

8. In the year 1657, the first edition of the Resuscitatio was published by 
Rawley ; and in 1679, the Baconiana, by Archbishop Tennison ; but the 
Essay of a King is not noticed in either of these publications. 

9. For near a century, that is, from 1656 to 1740, this essay seems to have 
been forgotten ; but in 174Q it was revived by Blackburn, in his edition of the 
works of Lord Bacon, who, in that edition, not only published it as an essay of 
Lord Bacon's, but incorporated it amongst the other essays ; — why he so incor- 
porated it, instead of annexing it as a posthumous and uncertain publication, 
he does not explain : although, as an admirer of Lord Bacon, he ought not to 
have forgotten the admonition that doubtful things ought neither to be rejected 
nor received as certainties, but to be entered in the calendar of doubts. " The 
registering of doubts hath," says Lord Bacon, " two excellent uses : the one, 
that it saveth philosophy from errors and falsehoods ; when that which is not 
fully appearing is not collected into assertion, whereby error might draw error, 
but is reserved in doubt." The reason which he assigns for having ascribed this 
essay to Lord Bacon is as follows: — " I have inserted from the Remains an 
Essay of a King ; and my reason is, it is so collated and corrected by Arch- 
bishop Sancroft's well known hand, that it appears to be a new work ; and 
though it consists of short propositions mostly, yet I will be so presumptuous as 
to say, that I think it now breathes the true spirit of our author : there seems to 
be an obvious reason why it was omitted before." 

With respect to the opinion of Sancroft, there appears not to be any evidence 
that he thought the essay authentic ; and, even if he had so thought, it cannot 
be necessary to add that it does not prove the fact. Why the examination of 
this essay by Sancroft, without knowing the nature of his observations, by 
which he was induced totally to alter the essay, should be evidence that the 
Archbishop thought it authentic, it seems difficult to discover. Is the present 
examination of the essay any evidence of my opinion of its authenticity ? With 
respect to the style of Lord Bacon being perceptible in this essay, Blackburn 
has not explained in what the resemblance consists. I have not been able to 
discover it : the only passage which may be supposed to have some resemblance, 
some shade of a shadow of recemblance, is the following : — " A wise king must 
do less in altering his laws than he may ; for new government is ever dan- 
gerous. It being true in the body politic, as in the corporal, that " omnis 
subita immutatio est periculosa ;" and though it be for the better, yet it is not 
without a fearful apprehension ; for he that changeth the fundamental laws of a 
kingdom, thinketh there is no good title to a crown, but by conquest." Let 
this be contrasted with his Essay on Innovation ; and, if any resemblance can 
be discovered, does it mark the hand of the master or of an imitator : " As the 
births of living creatures at first are ill-shapen, so are all innovations, which are 
the births of time ; yet notwithstanding, as those that first bring honour into 
their family are commonly more worthy than most that succeed, so the first 
precedent (if it be good) is seldom attained by imitation ; for ill to man's 
nature, as it stands perverted, hath a natural motion strongest in continuance ; 
but good, as a forced motion, strongest at first. Surely every medicine is an 
innovation, and he that will not apply new remedies must expect new evils." — 
To me it seems that there is not any resemblance; but, if 1 am in error, it is 
not from a casual resemblance of an isolated passage, but from the whole spirit 
and style of a work, that we can be warranted in ascribing it to an author. 
— " JN'othing is more easy," said a friend, "than occasionally to imitate the 
style of any eminent author." — " Attempt then," said a great admirer of Bishop 
Taylor, " to imitate his style." At their next interview, the following imitation 
was produced : " I have sat upon the sea shore, and waited for its gradual 
approaches, and have seen its dancing waves and its white surf, and admired 



NOTE 3 I. 

that he who measured it in his hand had given to it such life and motion ; and 
I have lingered till its gentle waters grew into mighty billows, and had well 
nigh swept me from my firmest footing. So have I seen an heedless youth 
gazing with a too curious spirit upon the sweet motions and gentle approaches 
of an inviting pleasure, till it has detained his eye, and imprisoned his feet, and 
swelled upon his soul, and swept him to a swift destruction." 

10. In the British Museum (Lands. 236.) there is a volume of MSS. con- 
taining this essay, thus entitled in the catalogue : " Speeches and other compo- 
sitions of Sir Francis Bacon, many whereof are stated by Mr. Umfreville, 
whose property they were, not to be collected into any edition of his works." 
The inscription to which the catalogue refers is, " Collectanea Bacon, many 
whereof are not yet collected into any edition of his works." — Who Mr. Umfre- 
ville was, or when this MS. was written, I know not. 

11. The admission of this essay amongst the essays in the different editions 
of Lord Bacon's works and essays, seems to have been occasioned by the inser- 
tion of this essay by Blackburn, in his edition of 1740. 

Essay on Death. This appeared, I believe, for the first time in the volume 
published in 1648, entitled Remains. It is inserted in Blackburn's edition, 
published in 1740, but, instead of being incorporated, like the " Essay of a 
King," amongst the other essays, it is annexed, at the end of the fourth volume, 
after the following notice : — The following fragments were never acknowledged 
by Dr. Rawley among the genuine writings of the Lord Bacon ; nor dare I say 
that they come up to the spirit or penetration of our noble author : however, as 
they are vouched to be authentic in an edition of the Remains of the Lord 
Verulam, printed 1648 ; and as Archbishop Sancroft has reflected some credit 
on them by a careful review, having in very many instances corrected and pre- 
pared them for the press, among the other unquestioned writings of his lordship ; 
for these reasons 1 have assigned them this place, and left every reader to form 
his own judgment about their importance. 

As Lord Bacon published an Essay on Death in the edition of 1612, and 
enlarged it in the edition of 1625, and as there is not any evidence, direct or 
indirect, exteraal or internal, that this is the production of Lord Bacon, I shall 
content myself' with saying that, before it is adopted, there ought to be some 
evidence of its authenticity.* 

Observations upon the Essays. 

His political writings of a more general nature, are his Apothegms and 
Essays, besides the Excerpta, out of the Advancement above remembered. 
Both these contain much of that matter which we usually call moral, distin- 
guishing it from that which is civil : in the handling of which sort of argument 
his lordship has been esteemed so far to excel, that he hath had a comment 
written on him, as on an author in ethics, and an advancer of that most useful 
part of learning, (a) Notwithstanding which, I am bold to put these books 
under this head of matter political ; both because they contain a greater por- 
tion of that matter, and because in true philosophy the doctrine of politics and 
ethics maketh up but one body, and springeth from one root, the end of God 
Almighty in the government of the world. 

Tennison. 
In a late Latin edition of these essays, there are subjoined two discourses, 
the one called De Negotiis, the other Faber Fortuna?. But neither of these 
are works newly published, but treatises taken out of the book De Augmentis. 
To this book of Essays may be annexed that fragment of an Essay of Fame, 
which is extant already in the Resuscilatio. 

* By mistake it is stated in vol. i. of my edition of Bacon, that there is a 
MS. of this essay in the Museum. 

(a) See Placcii Comment, in 1. 7, Aug. Scient. de Philosophia Morali 
augenda, in octavo. Franc, an. 1677. 



NOTE 3 I. 

Lord Bacon's Essays, Chamberlain's Letters, 17th Dec. 1612. " Sir Francis 
Bacon hath set out new essays, where in a chapter of Deformity, the world takes 
notice that he points out his little cousin to the life.* 

See Hay's Essays on Deformity, where there is a running comment upon this 
essay of Lord Bacon's. 

Professor Stewart, in his introductory lecture, says, " The ethical disqui- 
sitions of Bacon are almost entirely of a practical nature. Of the two theo- 
retical questions so much agitated in both parts of this island, during the 
eighteenth century, concerning the principle, and the object of moral approba- 
tion, he has said nothing; but he has opened some new and interesting views 
with respect to the influence of custom and the formation of habits, a most im- 
portant article of moral philosophy, on which he has enlarged more ably and 
more usefully than any writer since Aristotle. Under the same head of ethics, 
may be mentioned the small volume to which he has given the title of Essays ; 
the best known and the most popular of all his works. It is also one of those 
where the superiority of his genius appears to the greatest advantage ; the 
novelty and depth of his reflections often receiving a strong relief from the 
triteness of the subject. It may be read from beginning to end in a few hours ; 
and yet after the twentieth perusal one seldom fails to remark in it something 
overlooked before. This, indeed, is a characteristic of all Bacon's writings, and 
is only to be accounted by the inexhaustible aliment they furnish our own 
thoughts, and the sympathetic activity they impart to our torpid faculties." — 
Dugald Stewart's First Dissertation, p. 54. 

In the critique upon this introduction in the Edinburgh Review for Septem- 
ber, 1816, the author says, " We more properly contrast than compare the 
experiments in The Natural History, with the moral and political observations 
which enrich the Advancement of Learning, the Speeches, the Letters, the 
History of Henry the Seventh, and above all, the Essays, a book which, though 
it has been praised with equal fervour by Voltaire, Johnson, and Burke, has 
never been characterized with such exact justice and such exquisite felicity of 
expression as in the discourse before us. It will serve still more distinctly to 
mark the natural tendency of his mind, to observe that his moraj and political 
reflections relate to these practical subjects, considered in their most practical 
point of view ; and that he has seldom or never attempted to reduce to theory 
the infinite particulars of that ' civil knowledge' which, as he himself tells us, 
is, of all others, most immersed in matter, and hardliest reduced to axiom." — 
Edinburgh Review, Sept. 1816. 

Translations of the Essays. 
Latin. 
Bacon's notice of the Latin edition. — Of this translation, Bacon speaks in the 
following letter : 

" To Mr. Tobie Matthew. 

It is true my labours are now most set to have those works which I had for- 
merly published, as that of Advancement of Learning, that of Henry VII. that 
of the Essays, being retractate, and made more perfect, well translated into 
Latin by the help of some good pens, which forsake me not. For these modern 
languages will, at one time or other, play the bankrupt with books ; and since I 
have lost much time with this age, I would be glad, as God shall give me 
leave, to recover it with posterity. For the Essay of Friendship, while I took 
your speech of it for a cursory request, I took my promise for a compliment. 
But since you call for it, I shall perform it." 

In his letter to Father Fulgentio,t giving some account of his writings, he 
says, " The Novum Organum should immediately follow, but my Moral and 
political writings step in between as being more finished. These are the History 

* The Earl of Salisbury, the Lord Treasurer, who is elsewhere called by 
Chamberlain the " little great man ;" alluding, I suppose, to his size, 
t Baconiana, page 196. 



XOTE 3 I. 

of King Henry the Seventh, and the small book, which in your language you 
have called Saggi Morali, but I give it a graver title, that of Serrnones Fideles, 
or Interiora Rerum, and these essays will not only be enlarged in number but 
still more in substance." 

In the year 1622, in his letter to the Bishop of Winchester, concerning his 
published and intended writings, he says, " As for my Essays, and some other 
particulars of that nature, I count them but as the recreations of my other 
studies, and in that manner purpose to continue them ; though I am not igno- 
rant that those kind of writings would, with less pains and assiduity, perhaps 
yield more lustre and reputation to my name than the others I have in hand ; 
but I judge the use a man should seek in publishing his writings before his 
death to be but an untimely anticipation of that which is proper to follow, and 
not to go along with him." — Then see his Dedications to the different editions. 

Tennison's Notice of Latin Edition. 

The nature of the Latin edition and of the Essays in general is thus stated by 
Archbishop Tennison : 

" The Essays, or Counsels Civil and Moral, though a by-work also, do yet 
make up a book of greater weight by far than the apothegms : and coming 
home to men's business and bosoms, his lordship entertained this persuasion 
concerning them, that the Latin volume might last as long as books should 
last. His lordship wrote them in the English tongue, and enlarged them 
as occasion served, and at last added to them the Colours of Good and Evil, 
which are likewise found in his book De Augmentis. The Latin translation of 
them was a work performed by divers hands ; by those of Doctor Hacket (late 
Bishop of Lichfield), Mr. Benjamin Johnson (the learned and judicious poet), 
and some others, whose names I once heard from Dr. Rawley ; but I cannot 
now recal them. To this Latin edition, he gave the title of Serrnones Fideles, 
after the manner of the Jews, who called the words Adagies, or Observations of 
the Wise, Faithful Sayings; that is, credible propositions worthy of firm 
assent and ready acceptance. And (as I think) he alluded more particularly, 
in this title, to a passage in Ecclesiastes, where the Preacher saith that he 
sought to find out Verba Delectabilia (as Tremellius rendereth the Hebrew), 
pleasant words (that is, perhaps, his Book of Canticles;) and Verba Fidelia 
(as the same Tremellius), Faithful Sayings ; meaning, it may be, his Collec- 
tion of Proverbs. In the next verse, he calls them words of the wise, and so 
many goads and nails given ' Ab eodem pastore,' from the same shepherd [of 
the flock of Israel]." 

Publication of Latin Edition by Rawley. 

In the year 1638, Rawley published in folio a volume containing amongst 
other works, " Serrnones Fideles, ab ipso Honoratissimo Auctore, prastorquam 
in paucis, Latinitate donatus." In his address to the reader he says : " Acce- 
dunt quas prius Delibationes Civiles et Morales inscripserat : quasetiam in lin- 
guas plurimas modernas translatas esse novit sed eas postea et numero, et pon- 
dere, auxit ; in tan turn, ut veluti opus novum videri possint ; quas mutato 
titulo, Serrnones Fideles sive Interiora Rerum, inscribi placuit. Addi etiam 
voluit. The title page, dedication, and the table of contents are annexed : 

Serrnones Fideles sive, Interiora Rerum. Per Franciscum Baconum Baronem de 
Vervlamio, Vice-Comitem Sancti Albani. Londini, Excusum, typis Edwardi 
Griffin. Prostant ad Insignia Regia in Coemeterio D. Pauls, apud Richardum 
Whitakerum, 1638. 

Illustri and Excellenti Domino Georgio Duci Buckinghamiae, summo Angliae 
Admirallio. 
Honoratissime Domine, — Salomon inquit, Nomen bonum est instar vnguenti 
fragrantis et pretiosi ; neque dubito, quintale futurum sit nomen tuum apud 
posteros. Etenim et fortuna, et meritatua, praacelluerunt. Et videris ea plan- 
tasse, quaesint duratura. In lucem jam edere mihi visum est Delibationes 
meas, quae ex omnibus meis operibus fuerunt acceptissima? : quia forsitan 



NOTE 3 I. 

videntur, prae caeteris, hominum negotia stringere, et in sinus fluere. Eas 
autem auxi, et numero, et pondere : in tantum, ut plane opus novum sint, 
Consentaneum igitur duxi, affectui, et obligationi meae, erga illustrissimam 
dominationem tuam, ut nornen tuum illis praefigam, tarn in editione Anglica, 
quam Latina. Etenim, in bona spe sum, volumen earum in Latinam, (lin- 
guam scilicet universalem) versum, posse durare, quamdiu libri et literae durent. 
Instaurationem meam regi dicavi : Historiam Regni Henrici Septimi, (quam 
etiam in Latinum verti) et portiones meas Naturalis Historiae principi : has 
autem delibationes illustrissimae dominationi tuae dico ; cum sint, ex fmctibus 
optimis quos gratia divina calami mei laboribus indulgente, exhibere potui. 
Deus illustrissimam dominationem tuam manu ducat. Illustrissimae Domi- 
nationis tuae servus devinctissimus et fidelis, Fr. S. Alban. 



Index Ser 



1. 

2. 
3. 
4. 
5. 
6. 

7. 

8. 

9. 
10. 
11. 

12. 
13. 

14. 
15. 
16. 
17. 
18. 

19. 
20. 
21. 
22. 
23. 
24. 
25. 
26. 
27. 
28. 
29. 



De Veritate. pag. 153 

De Morte. 155 

De Vnitate Ecclesiae. 156 

De Uindicta. 159 

De Rebus adversis. 160 
De Dissimulatione et Simu- 

latione. 161 

De Parentibus et Liberis. 163 

De Nuptiis et Ccelibatu. 164 

De Invidia. 165 

De Am ore. 168 
De Magistratibus et Dignita- 

tibus. 170 

De Audacia. 172 
De Bonitate, et Bonitate Na- 

tiva. 173 

De Nobilitate. 175 

De Seditionibus et Turbis. 176 

De Atheismo. 183 

De Superstitione. 185 
De Peregratione in partes ex- 

teras. 186 
De Imperio. 188 
De Consilio. 191 
De Mora. 194 
De Astutia. 195 
De Prudentia quae sibi sapit. 197 
De Innovationabus. 198 
De Expediendis Negotiis 199 
De Prudentia apparente. 201 
De Amicitia. 202 
De Sumptibus. 206 
De Proferendis Finibus Im- 
perii. 207 



30. De Regimine Valetudinis. 214 

31. De Suspicione. 215 

32. De Discursu Sermonum. 215 

33. De Plantationibus Populo- 
rum et Coloniis. 217 

34. De Divitiis. 220 

35. De Ambitione. 222 

36. De Natura, et Indole Naturali 

in Hominibus. 224 

37. De Consuetudine et Educa- 

tione. 225 

38. De Fortuna. 225 

39. De Usura sive Foenore. 228 

40. De Juuentute et Senectute. 230 

41. De Pulchritudine. 232 

42. De Deformitate. 233 

43. De ^Edificiis. 234 

44. De Hortis. 237 

45. De Negotiatione. 242 

46. De Clientibus, Famulis, et 

Amicis. 243 

47. De Supplicantibus. 244 

48. De Studiis, et Lectione Libro- 

rum. 246 

49. De Factionibus. 247 

50. De Caeremoniis Civilibus, et 

Decoro. 248 

51. DeLaude. 250 

52. De Vana Gloria. 251 

53. De Honore et Existimatione. 252 

54. De Officio Judicis. 254 

55. De Ira. 256 

56. De Vicissitudine Rerum. 258 



By comparing the Tables of Contents of the English edition of 1625 and 
the Latin edition of 1638, it will be seen that they consist of the same essays, 
except that the Latin edition does not contain either of the Essays Of Prophecies 
or Of Masks and Triumphs, which seem not to have been translated. 

Retranslations of Latin into English. 

In some editions the editors have substituted their own translations of 
the Latin for the beautiful English by Lord Bacon. How well they have suc- 
ceeded the reader may jndge by the following specimens. In a translation 
published by William H. Willymott, LL.D. A.D. 1720, he says, " Wanting 
an English book for my scholars to translate, which might improve them in 



NOTE 3 I. 

sense and Latin at once, (two things which should never be divided in teach- 
ing) I thought nothing more proper for that purpose than Bacon's Essays, 
provided the English, which is in some places grown obsolete, were a little 
reformed, and made more fashionable. Accordingly having by me his lordship's 
Latin volume of the Essays, (which as it was a later, so seems to be a perfecter 
book) I fell to translating it, not tying myself strictly to the Latin, but com- 
paring both languages together, and setting down that sense (where there was 
any difference) that seemed the fullest and plainest." 
The following is a specimen : 



Dr. Willymott. 

" The principal virtue of prosperity 
is temperance ; of adversity, fortitude ; 
which in morals is reputed the most 
heroical virtue. Again, prosperity be- 
longs to the blessings of the Old Testa- 
ment ; adversity to the beatitudes of 
the New, which are both in reality 
greater, and carry a clearer revelation 
of the divine favour. Yet, even in the 
Old Testament, if you listen to David's 
harp, you will find more lamentable 
airs than triumphant ones." 



Lord Bacon. 

" But to speak in a mean, the 
virtue of prosperity is temperance, the 
virtue of adversity is fortitude, which 
in morals is the more heroical virtue. 
Prosperity is the blessing of the Old 
Testament, adversity is the blessing of 
the New, which carrieth the greater 
benediction, and the clearer revelation 
of God's favour. Yet, even in the Old 
Testament, if you listen to David's 
harp, you shall hear as many herse- 
like airs as carols." 



So too Shaw has made a similar attempt, of which the following is a specimen 
from the Essay " Of Goodness and Goodness of Nature :" 



Dr. Shaw. 
" There are several parts and signs 
of goodness. If a man be civil and 
courteous to strangers, it shews him a 
citizen of the world, whose heart is no 
island cut off from other lands, but a 
continent that joins them. If he be 
compassionate to the afflicted, it shews 
a noble soul, like the tree which is 
wounded when it gives the balm. If 
he easily pardons and forgives offences, 
it shews a mind perched above the 
reach of injuries. If he be thankful 
for small benefits, it shews he values 
men's minds before their treasure." 



Lord Bacon. 
" The parts and signs of goodness 
are many. If a man be gracious and 
courteous to strangers, it shews he is a 
citizen of the world, and that his heart 
is no island cut off from other lands, 
but a continent that joins to them ; if 
he be compassionate towards the afflic- 
tions of others, it shews that his heart 
is like the noble tree that is wounded 
itself when it gives the balm : if he 
easily pardons and remits offences, it 
shews that his mind is planted above 
injuries, so that he cannot be shot ; if 
he be thankful for small benefits, it 
shews that he weighs men's minds, 
and not their trash." 

Dr. Shaw, in his preface, says, " A modern well-wisher to his works had 
said that the English edition of the Essays may be as durable as the Latin 
edition, if some equal hand would, once in a century, repair the decays of their 
fleeting language." Dr. Shaw has not contented himself with an alteration of 
the style, but has altered the arrangement of the essays, by classing them into 

fMoral, 
Essays < Economical, and 
^Political. 

French. 

Essays Moraux. Tres Honorable Seigneur Francois Bacon Chevalier Baron 
de Verulam et grand Chancelier d'Angleterre traduites in Francois par le Sieur 
Arthur Georges, Chevalier Anglois. Scutura invincibile Fides. A Londres, chez 
Tenor Bell, 1619. 

VOL. XV. 6 



NOTES 3 I 3 K. 

Essays Politques et Moraux de Messire Francois Bacon, Grand Chancelier 
d'Angleteire mis en notre langue par C. Baudouin. A Paris, chez Francois 
Tnlhot au pied des ponts degres du Palais, an soleil d'or. mdcxxxi. Avec 
privilege du Roy. 

Post Nubila Surget Memories Sacrum. Les Oevvres Morales et Politiques de 
Messire Francois Bacon, grand Chancelier d'Angleterre de la version de I. Batt- 
doin. M.D.C.xxvi. A Paris chez Pierre Bacolet Francois Targa au Palais a 
lentree de la galerie des Priers. 

In the Essay of Unity in Religion, Lord Bacon, in his English edition, says, 
" What would he have said, if he had known of the massacre in France, or the 
Powder Treason of England 1" In this edition it is thas translated: " Mais 
qu'eust il diet s'il eust seen les sanglantes executions, et les horribles entreprises 
adveniies de nostre temps pour ce mesme sujetT' This volume also contains 
the translation of some of the apothegms : upon examining those which are 
omitted, it will be seen how cautiously every apothegm has been avoided in 
which a cardinal or pope is mentioned. 

Oeuvres de Francois Bacon, Chancelier d'Angleterre. Traduites par Ant. 
Lasalle. Avec des notes critiques, historiques et litteraires. Tome douzieme. 
A Dijon, de I' Imprimerie de L. N. Frantin. An. 10 de la Republique Francaise. 

Italian. 

Saggi Morali del Signore Francesco Bacono, Cavagliero Inglese, Gran Cance- 
liero de Inchilterra. Con vn altro suo Trattato delta Sapienza degli Antichi. 
Tradotti in Italiano. In Londra appresso di Ciovani Billio. 1618. 

Saggi Morali Opera Nuova di Francesco Bacon, Corretta, et data in luce del 
Sig. Cavalier Andrea Cioli Segretario di Stato del Sereniss. Gran Duca di Tos- 
cana, et un Trattato della Sapienza de gli Antichi all iliustris et excel. Sig. D. 
Francesco Colonna Principe de Palestina, §c. Ristampata in Bracciano per 
Andrea Fei. An licenza de Sup. 1621. Ad custanza di Pompilio Totti Librario 
in Navona. 

Sette Saggi Morali Del Sig. Caualier Francesco Baccone non piu veduti, e 
tradotti nell' Italiano. Con trentaquatro Esplicationi d'attretante Sentenze di 
Salomone. Con Licenza de' Superiori, <3f Priuilegio. In Venetia. Appresso 
Gitolamo Piuti. Al monte Parnaso. 1626. 

Lord Bacon's Essays. London, printed by Bensley, 1798. 12mo. Four large 
paper copies printed exclusively for the Countess Spencer. These four copies 
were presented by Lady Spencer, one to the late Duke of Devonshire, one to the 
late Rev. C. M. Cracherode, a third to the late Mr. James, and the fourth to 
his lordship. JEdes Althorpianae, vol. i. p. 104. A copy, stated to be that of 
Mr. James, in the catalogue of Payne and Foss, 1823, Supplement, marked 
8/. 8s. 

It is a fact not unworthy of notice. The first book published in Philadel- 
phia consists partly of the volume of Essays. It is entitled " The Temple 
of Wisdom," printed by William Bradford, Philadelphia, 1688. 

3 K. Life, p. xxxvii. 

All his early tracts, those which seem to have been written by him when a 
boy, are without imagery. See his treatise on Rhetoric, in the Advancement of 
Learning, vol. ii. p. 210. See also his praise of writing in Aphorisms, vol. ii. 
p. 203. It appears; therefore, that in after life he had recourse to method and 
ornament to insure reception for the truths which he was anxious to communi- 
cate. It may, however, be thought that this imagery had not, as in many poets, 
precedency in his mind, but followed in the train of his reason, and was used 
merely as a mode of illustrating the truths which he wishes to explain. To 
illustrate this, take (vol. ii. p. 51) the following passage: " But the greatest 
error of all the rest, is the mistaking or misplacing of the last or farthest end of 
knowledge ; for men have entered into a desire of learning and knowledge, 



^ T OTE 3 L. 

sometimes upon a natural curiosity and inquisitive appetite ; sometimes to enter- 
tain their minds with variety and delight; sometimes for ornament and reputa- 
tion ; and sometimes to enable them to victory of wit and contradiction ; and 
most times for lucre and profession ; and seldom sincerely to give a true account 
of their gift of reason, to the benefit and use of men : as if there were sought 
in knowledge a couch, whereupon to rest a searching and restless spirit; or a 
terras, for a wandering and variable mind to walk up and down with a fair 
prospect ; or a tower of state, for a proud mind to raise itself upon ; or a fort or 
commanding ground, for strife and contention ; or a shop, for profit or sale ; 
and not a rich storehouse, for the glory of the Creator, and the relief of man's 
estate." Upon examining this extract, it will appear that the truth is first 
conveyed, and that the imagery is appended to enforce it by decoration. 

Different parts of his works contain his sentiments upon imagination. In 
the conclusion of his tract on Poesy, he says, " But it is not good to stay too 
long in the theatre. Let us now pass on to the judicial place or palace of the 
mind, which we are to approach and view with more reverence and attention." 
And in the preface to the Sylva Sylvarum, Dr. Rawley says, " I will conclude 
with an usual speech of his lordship's, that this work of his Natural History is 
the world as God made it, and not as men have made it; for that it hath 
nothing of imagination." 

That his favourite style for philosophy was in Aphorisms, see his treatise on 
style in the Advancement of Learning, page 203 of vol. ii. of this edition. See 
also his Novum Organum, vol. ix. page 191, which is entirely in Aphorisms, 
and his tract on Justitia Universalis, in the Treatise de Augmentis, vol. ix. 
page 83. 

3 L. Life, p. xli. 

In the Meditations, he says, " This I dare affirm in knowledge of nature, 
that a little natural philosophy, and the first entrance into it, doth dispose the 
opinion to atheism ; but on the other side, much natural philosophy and wading 
deep into it will bring about men's minds to religion ; wherefore atheism every 
way seems to be joined and combined with folly and ignorance, seeing nothing 
can be more justly allotted to be the saying of fools, than this, ' There is no 
God.'" 

In the Advancement of Learning, he says, " It is an assured truth, and a 
conclusion of experience, that a little or superficial knowledge of philosophy 
may incline the mind of man to atheism, but a further proceeding therein doth 
bring the mind back again to religion ; for in the entrance of philosophy, when 
the second causes, which are next unto the senses, do offer themselves to the 
mind of man, if it dwell and stay there, it may induce some oblivion of the 
highest cause ; but when a man passeth on farther, and seeth the dependence 
of causes, and the works of Providence, then, according to the allegory of the 
poets, he will easily believe that the highest link of nature's chain must needs 
be tied to the foot of Jupiter's chair." 

Upon this subject Lord Bacon's sentiments seemed to have been formed at 
an early period of his life, and to have continued to his death. In the 
" Meditationes Sacrae," a portion of his Meditation on Atheism is as follows: 
— Of Atheism. " The fool hath said in his heart there is no God." First, 
it is to be noted that the scripture saith, " The fool hath said in his heart, 
and not thought in his heart." It is a fool that hath so said in his heart, 
which is most true ; not only in respect that he hath no taste in those 
things which are supernatural and divine, but in respect of human and civil 
wisdom ; for, first of all, if you mark the wits and dispositions which are 
inclined to atheism, you shall find them light, scoffing, impudent, and vain; 
briefly, of such a constitution as is most contrary to wisdom and moral gravity. 
Secondly, amongst statesmen and politics those which have been of greatest 
depths and compass, and of largest and most universal underderstanding, 
have not only in cunning made their profit in seeming religious to the people, 
but in truth have been touched with an inward sense of the knowledge of 



NOTE 3 M. 

the Deity, as they which you shall evermore note to have attributed much 
to fortune and providence. Contrariwise, those who ascribed all things to 
their own cunning and practices, and to the immediate and apparent causes, 
and as the prophet saith, '* have sacrificed to their own nets," have been always 
but petty counterfeit statesmen, and not capable of the greatest actions. Lastly, 
this I dare affirm, in knowledge of nature, that a little natural philosophy and 
the first entrance into it, doth dispose the opinion to atheism ; but, on the other 
side, much natural philosophy, and wading deep into it, will bring about men's 
minds to religion ; wherefore atheism every way seems to be joined and com- 
bined with folly and ignorance, seeing nothing can be more justly allotted to be 
the saying of fools than this, " There is no God." 

The first edition of his Essays, which was published with the Meditationes 
Sacrae, in 1597, does not contain any essay upon Atheism. The next time the 
subject is mentioned by Lord Bacon is in 1605, in the passage which I have 
just quoted from the Advancement of Learning. 

In 1612, Lord Bacon published an enlarged edition of his Essays, and in 
this edition there is an essay on Atheism, containing the very same sentiments ; 
and in 1625, the year before his death, he published another edition of his 
Essays, in which there are additions and alterations, and considerable improve- 
ments of the essay on Atheism, but a repetition of the same opinions. He 
says, in his sixteenth essay, which is " Of Atheism," " I had rather believe all 
the fables in the legend and the Talmud and the Alcoran, than that this uni- 
versal frame is without a mind ; and therefore God never wrought miracle to 
convince atheism, because his ordinary works convince it. It is true that a 
little philosophy inclines man's mind to atheism, but depth in philosophy 
bringeth men's minds about to religion ; for while the mind of man looketh 
upon second causes scattered, it may sometimes rest in them, and go no further ; 
but when it beholdeth the chain of them confederate and linked together, it 
must needs fly to providence and deity." 

3 M. Life, p. xlii. 

To my Lord of Essex. 
My singular good Lord, — Your lordship's so honourable minding my poor 
fortune, the last year, in the very entrance into that great action, (which is a 
time of less leisure ; and in so liberal an allowance of your care, as to write 
three letters to stir me up friends in your absence, doth, after a sort, warrant me 
not to object to myself your present quantity of affairs, whereby to silence my- 
self from petition of the like favour. I brake with your lordship myself at the 
Tower ; and I take it, my brother hath since renewed the same motion, touching 
a fortune I was in thought to attempt, in genere ceconomico. In genere politico, 
certain cross winds have blown contrary. My suit to your lordship is, for your 
several letters to be left with me, dormant, to the gentlewoman and either of 
her parents. Wherein I do not doubt, but as the beams of your favour have 
often dissolved the coldness of my fortune, so in this argument your lordship 
will do the like with your pen. My desire is also, that your lordship would 
vouchsafe unto me, as out of your care, a general letter to my Lord Keeper, 
for his lordship's holding me from you recommended, both in the course of my 
practice, and in the course of my employment in her majesty's service ; 
wherein, if your lordship shall, in any antithesis or relation affirm, that his 
lordship shall have no less fruit of me than of any other whom he may cherish, 
I hope your lordship shall engage yourself for no impossibility. Lastly, and 
chiefly, I know not whether I shall attain to see your lordship before your 
noble journey ; for ceremonies are things infinitely inferior to my love and to 
my zeal. This let me, with your allowance, say unto you by pen. It is true 
that in my well meaning advices, out of my love to your lordship, and, perhaps, 
out of the state of mine own minde, I have sometimes persuaded a course dif- 
fering : Ac tibi pro tutis insignia facta placebunt : Be it so : yet remember, that 
the signing of your name is nothing, unless it be to some good patent or charter, 
whereby your country may be endowed with good and benefit. Which I speak 



NOTES 3 M — 3 N 3 0. 

both to move you to preserve your person for further merit and service of her 
majesty and your country ; and likewise, to refer this action to the same end. 
And so in most true and fervent prayers, I commend your lordship, and your 
work in hand, to the preservation and conduct of the divine majesty ; so much 
the more watchful as these actions do more manifestly in show, though alike in 
truth, depend upon his divine providence. 

That nobleman embraced the cause of his friend with his wonted zeal, and 
instantly dispatched two letters from Sandwich, to be given to the father and 
mother of the lady. The letter to Sir Thomas Cecil was as follows : 

Sir, — I write this letter from the sea side ready to go abroad, and leave it 
with my secretary, to be by him delivered to you, whensoever he shall know, 
that my dear and wortthy friend, Mr. Francis Bacon, is a suitor to my Lady 
Hatton, your daughter, i What his virtues and excellent parts are, you are not 
ignorant. What advantages you may give, both to yourself and to your house, 
by having a son-in-law so qualified, and so likely to rise in his profession, 
you may easily judge. Therefore, to warrant my moving of you to incline 
favourably to his suit, I will only add this, that if she were my sister or daughter, 
I protest I would as confidently resolve to farther it, as I now persuade you. 
And though my love to him be exceedingly great, yet is my judgment nothing 
partial ; for he that knows him as well as I do, cannot but be so affected. In 
this farewell of mine I pray receive the kindest wishes of your most affectionate 
aud assured friend, Essex. 

Sandwich, this 24th of June. 

Lady Cecil, to whom the next letter was addressed, was one of the daughters 
and coheirs of John Nevil, Lord Latimer. 

Madam, — The end in my writing to your ladyship now, is to do that office to 
my worthy and dear friend, which, if I had stayed in England, I would have 
done by speech ; and that is, to solicit your ladyship to favour his suit to my 
Lady Hatton, your daughter ; which I do in behalf of Mr. Francis Bacon, 
whose virtues I know so much, as you must hold him worthy of very good for- 
tune. If my judgment be any thing, I do assure your ladyship I think you shall 
veiy happily bestow your daughter. And if my faith be any thing, I protest, if 
I had one as near me, as she is to you, I had rather match her with him than 
with men of far greater titles. And if my words do carry credit with your lady- 
ship, you shall make me very much bound to you, and shall tie me to be at 
your ladyship's commandment, Essex. 

Sandwich, the 24th of June, 1597. 

3 N. Life, p. xlii. 

This was a most unhappy marriage, and Bacon's subsequent knowledge 
of Lady Hatton's violence of temper must have made him thankful for his de- 
feat. This lady's name is still connected with a wild legend, and not many 
years since she was believed to revel nightly with much pomp, in the old man- 
sion in Hatton Garden, which Count Swedenborg afterwards converted into a 
chapel. 

3 O. Life, p. xlii. 

To Sir Thomas Egertpn, Lord Keeper of the Great Seal. 

It may please your Lordship,— I am to make humble complaint to your 
lordship of some hard dealing offered me by one Sympson, a goldsmith, a man 
noted much, as I have heard, for extremities and stoutness upon his purse ; but 
yet I could scarcely have imagined he would have dealt either so dishonestly 
towards myself, or so contemptuously towards her majesty's service. For this 
Lombard (pardon me, I most humbly pray your lordship, if being admonished 
by the street he dwells in, I give him that name) having me in bond for three 



NOTES 3 O 3 P. 

hundred pounds principal, and I having the last term confessed the action, and 
by his full and direct consent, respited the satisfaction till the beginning of this 
term to come, without ever giving me warning, either by letter or message, 
served an execution upon me, having trained me at such time as I came from 
the Tower, where Mr. Waad can witness, we attended a service of no mean im- 
portance ; neither would he so much as vouchsafe to come and speak with me to 
take any order in it, though I sent for him divers times, and his house is just 
by ; handling it as upon a despite, being a man I never provoked with a cross 
word, no nor with many delays. He would have urged it to have had me in 
prison ; which he had done, had not Sheriff More, to whom I sent, gently re- 
commended me to a handsome house in Coleman Street, where I am. Now 
because he will not treat with me, I am inforced humbly to desire your lordship 
to send for him according to your place, to bring him to some reason ; and this 
forthwith, because I continue here to my farther discredit and inconvenience, 
and the trouble of the gentleman with whom I am. I have a hundred pounds 
laying by me, which he may have, and the rest upon some reasonable time and 
security, or if need be, the whole ; but with my more trouble. As for the con- 
tempt he hath offered, in regard her majesty's service to my understanding, car- 
rieth a privilege eundo et redeundo in meaner causes, much more in matters of 
this nature, especially in persons known to be qualified with that place and em- 
ployment, which, though unworthy, I am vouchsafed, I inforce nothing, think- 
ing I have done my part when I have made it known, and so leave it to your 
lordship's honourable consideration. And so with signification of my humble 
duty, &c. 

To Sir Robert Cecil, Secretary of State. 

It may please your Honour,---I humbly pray you to understand how badly I 
have been used by the inclosed, being a copy of a letter of complaint thereof, 
which I have written to the lord keeper. How sensitive you are of wrongs 
offered to your blood in my particular I have had not long since experience. 
But herein I think your honour will be doubly sensitive, in tenderness also of 
the indignity to her majesty's service ; for as for me, Mr. Sympson might have 
had me every day in London ; and therefore to belay me while he knew I came 
from the Tower about her majesty's special service was to my understanding 
very bold. And two days before he brags he forebore me, because I dined with 
Sheriff More : so as with Mr. Sympson, examinations at the Tower are not so 
great a privilege, eundo et redeundo, as Sheriff More's dinner. But this com- 
plaint I make in duty ; and to that end have also informed my lord of Essex 
thereof; for otherwise his punishment will do me no good. 

So with signification of my humble duty, I commend your honour to the 
divine preservation. At your honourable command particularly, Fr. Bacon. 

3 P. Life, p. xlii. 

The following is the title of the work : An Account of the lately erected Ser- 
vice, called the Office of Coin-positions for Alienations. Written [about the close 
of 1598] by Mr. Francis Bacon, and published from a MS. in the Inner Temple 
Library. There is a MS. of it in the Harleian MSS. 4888-5. 

The biographer of Bacon, in the Biographia Britannica, thus speaks of this 
work. How far this eulogium is correct I leave the reader to discover. " This 
curious and highly finished tract, which has been but lately published from a 
MS. in the Inner Temple Library, is one of the most laboured pieces penned 
by our most learned author, containing his resolutions of a very perplexed question, 
whether it was most for the Queen's benefit, that the profits arising from this 
office for Alienations, should be let out to farm or not ? In handling this he 
has shewn such diversity of learning, and so clear a conception of all the 
different points of law, history, antiquities, and policy, as is really amazing ; 
for I think it may be truly said, that there is not any treatise of the same com- 
pass extant in our language, which manifests so comprehensive a genius, and so 
accurate a knowledge, both with respect to theory and practice as this, and 



NOTES 3 Q — 3 R. 

therefore it cannot but seem strange, that it lay so long hid from the world ; 
but what appears to me most surprising is, that it shews our author to have had 
as true notions, and as good a turn for economy as any man ever had, which 
before the publication of this treatise, was thought the only kind of knowledge 
in which he was deficient. But it seems it was one thing as a lawyer, states- 
man, and candidate for court favour, to enter into a detail of the Queen's 
revenues, to consider the various methods in which they might be managed, 
together with the advantages and disadvantages attending each method ; and 
quite another, to enter with like spirit and diligence into his own affairs, which 
if he had done, he might have passed his days more happily, and have left his 
fame without blemish." 

About the close of the succeeding year, 1598, he composed, on a particular 
occasion, his History of the Alienation Office, which, however, was not pub- 
lished till many years after his decease. In this learned work he has fully 
shewn how great a master he was, not in our law only, but in our history and 
antiquities ; so that it may be justly said, there never fell any thing from his 
pen, which more clearly and fully demonstrated his abilities in his profession. 
It is not written in that dry, dark, and unentertaining way, which so much dis- 
courages young readers in the perusal of books of this kind ; but, on the contrary, 
the style is pleasant and agreeable, though plain and suitable to the subject ; 
and facts, authorities, observations, remarks, and reflections, are so judiciously 
interwoven, that whoever reads it with a competent knowledge of the subject, 
must acknowledge him an able lawyer and an elegant writer. It is needless to 
mention some smaller instances of his abilities in the law, which nevertheless 
were received by the learned society of which he was a member, with all 
possible marks of veneration and esteem, and which they have preserved with 
that reverence due to so worthy a person and so eminent an ornament of their 
house. 

3 Q. Life, p. xlii. 

Chudley's case, Le Argument de Fr. Bacon, Lansdowne MSS. 1121. I have 
procured a copy, and had I procured it in time, it should have been inserted in 
the volume in this edition appropriated to law works. 

3 R. Life, p. xlii. 

I subjoin some notices and observations upon the reading in the Statute of 
Uses. 

The first edition of which I have any knowledge, and of which there is a copy 
in the British Museum, was in 1642. It is thus noticed in the Baconiana : 
" His lordship's seventh writing, touching Civil Policy in special, is his reading 
on the Statute of Uses. The following is a copy of the title page : The learned 
Reading of Sir Francis Bacon, one of her Majesties learned Counsell at Law, 
upon the Statute of Uses : being his double Reading to the Honourable Society of 
Grayes Inne. Published for the common good. London : printed for Mathew 
Walbancke, and Laurence Chapman. 1642. 

There have, of course, been various editions since 1642, of which the last 
was by W. H. Rowe. No. 342 of Hargrave's MSS. contains Index to Bacon 
on Statute of Uses. The copies in MS. in the Harleian collection in the British 
Museum appear from the hand writing to have been both written prior to the 
first printed edition ; that in No. 1853 is a complete copy, the other in No. 6688 
is written very close in a neat hand, and contains about two-thirds only of the 
reading ; it ends with this passage : " The words that are common to both are 
words expressing the conveyance whereby the use ariseth." 

Blackburn, vol. i. p. 184. We are now come to the learned reading upon 
the Statute of Uses, being Mr. Bacon's double reading to the honourable 
society of Gray's Inn, 42 Eliz. When this piece was first published, the state of 
printing resembled the state of monarchy, both being at a low ebb ; and none 
of our noble author's works have been more miserably racked and disjointed 



NOTES 3 R 3 S. 

than this before us. I have been fortunate in procuring a corrected copy of the 
whole ; and further still, a second and much better copy in MS. which I take, 
upon comparison of hands, to be the character of our author's clerk or amanu- 
ensis ; for as the proprietor of this MS. was a lawyer by profession, so being 
cotemporary with our author, the probability of its being an original is the 
stronger. However, I presume to say, meo periculo, that the internal proofs of 
the excellency of this MS. so far as it goes (viz. to p. 169) are such that they 
make our author speak masterly sense, and render the work in a manner new. 

In the Harleian collection in the British Museum are the following MSS. 
with these titles : 

Lectura Francisci Bacon unius ex consilio Domina Regin<e in Legibus Eru- 
ditis, Duplicis Lectoris, Super Statutum edictum 27 Hen. VIII. cap. 10. de 
Usibus in Possessionem transferendis. In English. Harleian MSS. British 
Museum, No. 1853, fol. 90—167. 

Lectura secunda Francisci Bacon militis super Statutum provisum, 27 Hen. 
VIII. cap. 10. de usubus in possessionem tranferendis, fyc. Harleian MSS. 
British Museum, No. 6688, f. 16. 

Mr. Hargrave has written the following note on the first leaf of his copy of 
the edition by Rowe, now in the British Museum . — The first edition of Lord 
Bacon's Reading on the Statute of Uses was in 1642, which was about seven- 
teen years after his death. In the title page of that edition it is expressed to be 
" The Learned Reading of Sir Francis Bacon, one of her Majesty's Counsel at 
Law, upon the Statute of Uses, being his Double Reading to the Honourable 
Society of Grayes Inne." It appears therefore to have been delivered in the 
reign of Queen Elizabeth. I collect also from the early part of the Reading, 
where Lord Bacon mentions Master Attorney's having read upon the statute, 
that the Reading of Lord Bacon was composed whilst Lord Coke was attorney 
general to Queen Elizabeth, which was from 10th April, 36th Eliz. to the end 
of her reign. My inference that by Master Attorney Lord Bacon meant Lord 
Coke, is from my having a manuscript volume of Readings, with an imperfect 
note of part of a reading by Lord Coke upon the Statute of Uses, entitled 
Lecture of Master Coke, Attorney General ; and from Lord Coke's being 
Attorney General when the Reading by Lord Bacon was delivered, which must 
have been after the judgment in Chudleigh's case, in 37th Eliz. he citing that 
judgment as made in that year. Upon the whole, I think that Lord Bacon's 
Reading was delivered about three or four years before the death of Elizabeth. 
— F. H. 

In Coke upon Littleton, 17 Edw. I. i. c. 1. gg 4. p. 13, there is the following 
accidental observation by Mr. Hargrave : "As to an uses ensuing the nature 
of the land, see 1 Co. 127, 2 Co. 58, and Bac. Reading on Stat. Uses, 8vo. 
edit. 308, in which latter book the author controverts the generality of the doc- 
trines, which certainly ought to be understood between uses and the land itself ; 
or rather, as he expresses himself between uses and cases of possession. It 
may be proper to observe, that all the editions of Lord Bacon's Reading on 
Uses are printed with such extreme incorrectness, that many passages are ren- 
dered almost unintelligible, even to the mdst attentive reader. A work so 
excellent deserves a better edition." 

3 S. Life, p. xliv. 

The following selections from D'Ewer's Journal will enable the reader to 
form some estimate of his unremitted exertions ; and will be the means of pub- 
lishing some speeches not hitherto contained in any of the works. 

Extract from the Journal of the House of Commons, 39 and 40 Reg. Eliz. 
1597, p. 551. — Mr. Francis Bacon spake first, after that one bill, mentioned in 
the original Journal Book of the House of Commons, had been read the first 
time, viz. the bill against Forestallers, Regraters, and Ingrossers, and made a 
motion against inclosures and depopulation of towns and houses, of husbandry 
and tillage ; and to this purpose he brought in, as he termed it, two bills not 
drawn with a polished pen, but with a polished heart free from affection and 



NOTE 3 S. 

affectation. And because former Jaws are medicines of our understanding, he 
said he had perused the preambles of former statutes, and by them did see the 
inconveniences of this matter, being scarce then out of the shell, to be now fully 
ripened ; and he said that the overflowing of the people makes a shrinking, and 
abate elsewhere ; and that these two mischiefs, though they be exceeding great, 
yet they seem the less because qui mala cum multis patimur, leviora videntur, 
and though it may be thought ill and very prejudicial to lords that have inclosed 
great grounds, and pulled down even whole towns, and converted them to 
sheep pastures ; yet considering the increase of people and the benefit of the 
commonwealth, I doubt not but every man will deem the revival of former 
moth-eaten laws in this point a praiseworthy thing. For in matters in policy, 
ill is not to be thought ill, which bringeth forth good ; for inclosure of grounds 
brings depopulation, which brings, first, idleness ; secondly, decay of tillage ; 
thirdly, subversion of houses, and decay of charity, and charges to the poor ; 
fourthly, impoverishing the state of the realm. A law for the taking away of 
such inconveniences is not to be thought ill or hurtful to the general state ; and 
I would be sorry to see within this realm that piece of Ovid's verse prove true, 
Jam seges ubi Trojafuit, so in England, instead of a whole town full of people, 
nought but green fields, but a shepherd and a dog. The eye of experience is 
the sure eye, but the eye of wisdom is the quicksighted eye ; and by experience 
we daily see, Xemo putat illud videri turp% quod sibi sit quastosum, and there- 
fore there is almost no conscience made in destroying of the life, bread, I mean, 
for Panis sapor vita, and therefore a strict and rigorous law had need to be made 
against those viperous natures who fulfil the proverb, Si non posse quod vult, 
telle tamen quod potest, which if it be made by us, and life given unto it by 
execution in our several counties, no doubt they will prove laws tending to 
God's honour, the renown of her majesty, the fame of this parliament, and the 
everlasting good of this kingdom, and therefore I think them worthy to be 
received and read. — Thus far out of the aforesaid fragmentary and imperfect 
journal : that which follows is out of the original Journal Book itself. In the 
end of which said speech, as it should seem, the said Mr. Bacon did move the 
house that a committee might be appointed to consider of the said matter 
touching inclosures. 

Extract from the Journal of the House of Commons, 39 and 40 Eliz. 1597 , 
23rd Nov. p. 562. — Mr. Francis Bacon, one of the committee, concerning 
tillage and reedifying of houses and buildings (who were appointed on Saturday, 
the 5th day of this instant November foregoing) shewed very eloquently and at 
large the travels of the said committee in their sundry meetings together, with 
his framing a bill, by their appointment, for some fit means of procuring the 
reedifying of such houses and buildings ; and so offered the bill to the house, 
and recommending the same to their good consideration, delivered the bill to 
Mr. Speaker. 

Extract from the Journal of the House of Commons, 39 and 40 Eliz. 1597, 
5th Dec. page 568. — Mr. Francis Bacon, one of the committees of the bill for 
tillage and building of houses (who were appointed on Saturday, the 26th 
day of November foregoing), shewed at large the meeting and the travel of the 
committees, and their framing of'two new bills, and delivereth both the old and 
the new bill to the house. 

From the Journal of the House of Commons, 8th Dec. 40 Reg. Eliz. 1597, 
p. 571. — Mr. Franeis Bacon, one of the committees in the bill to preserve the 
property of stolen horses in the true owner's, brought in the bill with some 
amendments, which being thrice read, was ordered to be engrossed. 

Extract from Dewe's Journal, 39 and 40 Eliz. 14 Jan, 1597, page 580. — 
Mr. Bacon reciting in part the preceedings yesterday in the conference with the 
Lords at the court, and putting the house in mind of the objections of the Lords, 
delivered this day in writing by Mr. Attorney General, moved for a committee 
of some selected members of this house to be nominated to confer and consider 
upon the said objections, for the better answering of the same to the mainte- 
nance of the bill. Whereupon some desiring that the said objections might be 

VOL. XV. 7 



NOTE 3 S. 

read, all was then further deferred till Monday next, the time being now far 
spent, and the house ready to rise. 

Extract from Dewe's Journal, 39 and 40 Eliz. 4 Feb. 1598, page 593. — 
Mr. Francis Bacon, one of the committees in the bill lately passed in the upper 
house by the Lords, and sent down to this house, against the decaying of houses 
and towns of husbandry, shewed the meeting and travel of the committees and 
amendments to the same bill, which amendments being read to the house, was 
very well liked of by the whole house. 

Extract from Dewe's Journal, 39 and 40 Eliz. 3rd Feb. 1598, page 592.— 
Mr. Francis Bacon, one of the committees in the bill lately passed in the upper 
house, and sent down by the Lords to this house, entitled an act against the 
decaying of towns and houses of husbandry, shewed the meeting of the com- 
mittees, and that the more part of them being employed in the committee of a 
bill for the more speedy payment of the Queen's majesty's debts (who were 
appointed on Tuesday, the" 31st day of January foregoing), and in the bill for 
the better explanation of the act made in the thirteenth year of her majesty's 
reign, entitled an act to make the lands, tenements, goods and chattels of 
tellers, receivers, &c. liable to the payment of their debts, they would proceed 
in the said other bill, and so moved for another meeting for that purpose. 
Whereupon it was ordered the same should be at two of the clock of the after- 
noon of this present day in the Exchequer Chamber. 

Extract from the Parliamentary History, 43 Reg. Eliz. Nov. 5, 1601, p. 436. 
— The famous Mr. Francis Bacon, so often mentioned before, stood up to make 
a motion, and on the offering of a bill spoke thus : — Mr. Speaker, I am not of 
their minds that bring their bills into this house obscurely, by delivery only to 
yourself or the clerk, delighting to have the bills to be incerto authore, as 
though they were either ashamed of their work, or afraid to father their own 
children ; but I, Mr. Speaker, have a bill here, which I know I shall no sooner 
be ready to offer, but you will be ready to receive and approve. I liken this 
bill to that sentence of the poet, who set this as a paradox in the fore front of his 
book, First water, then gold, preferring necessity before pleasure. And I am of 
the same opinion that things necessary in use, are better than those things which 
are glorious in estimation. This, Mr. Speaker, is no bill of state or novelty, like 
a stately gallery for pleasure, but neither to dine in or to sleep in : but this bill 
is a bill of repose, of quiet, of profit, of true and just dealings ; the title whereof 
is, An Act for the better suppressing of abuses in weights and measures. We 
have turned out divers bills without disputation ; and for a house of wisdom 
and gravity as this is, to bandy bills like balls, and to be silent as if nobody 
were of counsel with the commonwealth, is unfitting in my understanding for 
the state thereof. I will tell you, Mr. Speaker, out of my own experience, that 
I have learned and observed, having had causes of this nature referred to my 
report; that this fault of using false weights and measures has grown so intole- 
rable and common, that if you would build churches, you shall not need for 
battlements and bells other than false weights of lead and brass ; and because 
I would observe the advice given in the beginning of this parliament, that we 
should make no new laws ; I have only made this bill a confirmation of the 
statute of the 11th of Henry VII. with a few additions, to which I will speak at 
the passing of the bill, and shew the reasons of every particular clause, the 
whole being a revival of a former statute ; for I take it far better to scour a 
stream than to turn a stream : and the first clause is, " That it is to extend to 
the principality of Wales, to constrain them to have the like measures and 
weights to us in England." 

Extract from the Journal of the House of Commons, 43 Eliz. 7 Nov. 1601, 
page 632. — Mr. Francis Bacon, after a repetition of somewhat was done yester- 
day, that the three pound men might not be excluded, he concluded that it was, 
Dulcis tractus pari jugo, therefore the poor as well as the rich not to be 
exempted. 

Extract from Dewe's Journal, 43 Eliz. 13 Nov. 1601, page 636.— Mr. Fran- 
cis Bacon said, It is far more honourable for this house in my opinion, when 
our warrant shall move the principal member of justice, that when it shall com- 



NOTE 3 S. 

mand a base, petty, or inferior servant to the clerk of the crown or the clerk o f 
the petty bag, it will be said that our warrant emanavit improvide, when we shall 
direct our warrants to these base officers when we may move the great seal of 
England by it, even as soon as either petty bag or petty officer. 

Extract from Dewe's Journal, 43 Eliz. 18 Nov. 1601, page 642. — Mr. Bacon, 
one of the committees in the bill touching process and pleadings in the court of 
Exchequer, maketh report of the travel and meeting of the committees, and 
brought in a new bill drawn to the same purpose ; upon the referring whereof 
he spake as followeth (out of the private journal) : Mr. Speaker, This bill hath 
been deliberately and judiciously considered of by the committees, before whom 
Mr. Oshorn came, who I assure this house did so discreetly demean himself, 
and so submissively referred the state of this whole office to the committees, and 
so well answered in his defence, that they would not ransack the heaps, or 
sound the bottom of former offences, but only have taken away something that 
was superfluous and needless to the subject. Touching the committees they 
have reformed part ; yet they have not so nearly eyed every particular as if 
they would pare to the quick an office of her majesty's gift and patronage. 
This bill is both public and private : public, because it is to do unto the sub- 
ject; and private, because it does no injustice to the particular officer. The 
committees herein have not taxed the officer by way of imputation, but removed 
a task by removing way of imposition. I will not tell you what we have 
taken away, either in quo titulos, in Exchequer language, or according to the 
poet, who saith, Mitte id quod scio, die quod rogo ; I will omit that which you 
have known, and tell you that you know not and are to know, and that in 
familiar terms. And so he told the substance of the bill. We found that her 
majesty, whose eyes are the candles of our good days, had made him an officer 
by patent ; in which that he might have right, her majesty's learned counsel 
were there in centinel to see that her majesty's right might not be suppressed. 
If my memory hath failed me in the delivering of the truth of the proceeding, 
and the committee's determination, I desire those that were present to help and 
assist me. Here is the bill. So he called aloud to the serjeant of the house, 
and delivered him the bill to deliver to the Speaker, which said bill was read 
prima vice. 

Extract from the Journal of the House of Commons, 43 Eliz. 20 Nov. 1601, 
page 644. — Mr. Francis Bacon said, The gentleman that spake last coasted 
so for and against the bill, that for my own part, not well hearing him, I do not 
perfectly understand him. I confess, the bill as it is, is in few words, yet pon- 
derous and weighty. For the prerogative royal of the prince, for my own part, 
I ever allowed of it, and it is such as shall never be discussed. The Queen, as 
she is our sovereign, hath both an enlarging and distraining power. For by 
her prerogative she may at first set at liberty things restrained by statute law or 
otherwise ; and secondly, by her prerogative she may restrain things which be 
at liberty. For the first, she may grant non obstante, contrary to the penal 
laws, which truly, according to my own conscience (and so struck himself on 
the breast), are as hateful to the subjects as monopolies. For the second, if 
any man out of his own wit, industry, or endeavour finds out any thing bene- 
ficial for the commonwealth, or bring in any new invention, which every subject 
of this kingdom may use ; yet, in regard of his pains and travels therein, her 
majesty is pleased to grant him a privilege to use the same only by himself or 
his deputies for a certain time. This is one kind of monopoly. Sometime, 
there is a glut of things when they be in excessive quantity, as perhaps of corn, 
and her majesty gives license of transportation to one man : this is another 
kind of monopoly. Sometime there is a scarcity or small quantity, and the 
like is granted also. These and divers of this nature have been in trial both at 
the Common Pleas upon actions of trespass, where if the judges do find the 
privilege good and beneficial to the commonwealth, they then will allow it ; 
otherwise, disallow it. And also I know that her majesty herself hath given 
commandment to her Attorney General to bring divers of them, since the last 
parliament, to trial in the Exchequer, since which time at least fifteen or six- 
teen, to my knowledge, have been repealed; some by her majesty's express 



NOTES 3 S— 3T. 

commandment upon complaint made unto her by petition, and some by quo 
warranto, in the Exchequer. But, Mr. Speaker (said he, pointing to the bill), 
this is no stranger to this place, but a stranger in this vestment; the use hath 
been ever to humble ourselves unto her majesty, and by petition desire to have 
our grievances remedied, especially when the remedy toucheth her so nigh in 
point of prerogative. All cannot be done at once ; neither was it possible since 
last parliament to repeal all. If her majesty make a patent (or as we term it, 
a monopoly) unto any of her servants, that must go, and we cry out of it ; but 
if she grant it to a number of burgesses or a corporation, that must stand, and 
that forsooth is no monopoly. I say, and I say again, that we ought not to 
deal, to judge, or meddle with her majesty's prerogative. I wish every man 
therefore to be careful in this business ; and humbly pray this house to testify 
with me that I have discharged my duty in respect of my place, in speaking on 
her majesty's behalf, and protest I have delivered my conscience in saying that 
which I have said. 

Extract from the Journal of the House of Commons, 43 Eliz. 9 Dec. 1601, 
page 674. — Mr. Bacon said, The old commendation of Italy by the poet was, 
Potens inn's atque ubere gleba, and it stands not with the policy of the state that 
the wealth of the kingdom should be engrossed into a few graziers' hands. And 
if you put in so many provisos as be desired, you will make it useless. The 
husbandman is a strong man, the good footman, which is the chief observation 
of good warriors, &c. So he concluded the statute not to be repealed. 

From the Journal of the House of Commons, 43 Eliz. 4 Dec. 1601, page 669. 
— Mr. Bacon said, I am, Mr. Speaker, to tender unto this house the fruit of 
the committee's labour, which tends to the comfort of the realm, I mean the 
merchant, which if it quail or fail into a consumption, the state cannot choose 
but shortly be sick of that disease. It is inclining already. A certainty of 
gain is that which this law provides for, and by policy of assurance the safety 
of goods assured unto merchants. This is the loadstone that draws him on to 
adventure, and to stretch even the very punctilio of his credit. The committees 
have drawn a new bill, far differing from the old : the first limited power to the 
Chancery, this to certain commissioners of Oyer and Terminer ; the first, that it 
should only be there, this that only upon appeal from the commissioners it 
should be there finally arbitrated. But lest it may be thought for vexation, the 
party appellant must lay it in deposito, &c. and if tried against him, to pay 
double costs and damages. We thought this course fittest for two reasons ; 
first, because a suit in Chancery is too long a course, and the merchant cannot 
endure delays ; secondly, because our courts have not the knowledge of their 
terms, neither can I tell what to say upon their causes, which be secret in their 
science, proceeding out of their experience. I refer the bill both old and new 
to your considerations, wishing good success therefore in both for the comfort of 
the merchants and performance of our duties. The act is entitled, An Act 
touching Policies of Assurances used among Merchants. 



3T. Life, p. xlviii. 

See Bacon's Essay on Friendship. The following, from Bacon's Apology 
respecting Essex, is a specimen of Elizabeth's sensibility upon this subject : 
" And another time I remember she told me for news, that my lord had written 
unto her some very dutiful letters, and that she had been moved by them, and 
when she took it to be the abundance of the heart, she found it to be but a pre- 
parative to a suit for the renewing of his farm of sweet wines ; whereunto I 
replied, O Madam, how doth your Majesty construe these things, as if these 
two could not stand well together, which indeed nature hath planted in all 
creatures. For there are but two sympathies, the one towards perfection, the 
other towards preservation. That to perfection, as the iron contendeth to the 
loadstone ; that to preservation, as the vine will creep towards a stake or prop 
that stands by it, not for any love to the stake, but to uphold itself. And there- 
fore, madam, you must distinguish my lord's desire to do you service, is as to 



NOTES 3 V 3 W. 

his perfection, that which he thinks himself to be born for : whereas his desire 
to obtain this thing of you, is but a sustentation." 

The following anecdote mentioned by Bacon, in his observations upon Alex- 
ander, seems to be another manifestation of this species of sensibility :— r For 
matter of policy, weigh that significant distinction, so much in all ages embraced, 
that he made between his two friends, Hephaestion and Craterus, when he said, 
" That the one loved Alexander, and the other loved the king :" describing the 
principal difference of princes' best servants, that some in affection love their 
person, and others in duty love their crown. 

3 V. Life, p. lv. 

The following is the title from a copy published in 1603 : An Apology of the 
Earl of Essex against those which Jealously and Maliciously tax him to be the 
Hinderer of the Peace and Quiet of his Country. Penned by himself in anno 
1598. Imprinted at London by Rich. Bradocke, 1603. 

The Tract thus opens : "He that either thinketh he hath or wisheth to have 
an excellent face, no sooner is told of any spot or uncomeliness in his counte- 
nance than he hyes to shew himself to a glass, that the glass may shew again 
his true likeness unto him ; the same curiosity moves me, that desires to have a 
fair minde, to shew the true face and state of my mind to my true friend ; that 
he like a true glass without injury or flattery may tell me whether nature or acci- 
dent have set so foul a blemish in it as my accusers pretend. 

" I am charged that either in affection or opinion or both, I prefer war before 
peace, and so consequently that all my counsels, actions, and endeavours, doe 
tend to keep the state of England in continual wars, especially at this time 
when some say peace may be had and I only impugn it. But both my heart 
disclaims from so barbarous an affection, and my judgment from so absurd an 
opinion. The reputation of a most faithful subject and zealous patriot (which 
with hazard of my life, and decay of my estate, I have sought to purchase) must 
not suffer this ugly and odious aspersion, that my actions have caused, main- 
tained, or increased the wars, or had ever any such scope or intent. 

" First, for my affection in nature it was indifferent to books and to arms, and 
was more inflamed with the love of knowledge than with the love of fame ; wit- 
ness my contemplative retiredness in Wales, and my bookishness from my 
very childhood. And now if time, reason, or experience, have taught me to 
wish that to myself which is best for myself, what should I not wish rather than 
martial employment, in which I have impaired my state, lost my dear and only 
brother, the half arch of my house, buried many of my dearest and nearest 
friends, and subjected myself to the rage of seas, violence, general plagues, 
famine, and all kinds of wants, discontentment of undisciplined and unruly 
multitudes, and acceptation of all events. And as my affection neither in truth 
is, nor, if I regard myself, in reason ought to be set on these courses of the wars : 
so in judgment I have ever thought wars the disease and sickness ; and peace, the 
true, natural, and healthful temper, of all states/' 

3W. Life, p. lviii. 

The motive for this proceeding is thus stated in the opening of the case against 
him. " Few days after my lord was removed to further liberty in his own 
house, her majesty hoping that these bruits and malicious imputations would of 
themselves wax old and vanish : but finding it otherwise in proof, upon taste 
taken by some intermission of time, and especially beholding the humour of the 
time in a letter presumed to be written to her majesty herself by a lady, to 
whom, though nearest in blood to my lord, it appertained little to intermeddle 
in matters of this nature, otherwise than in course of humility to have solicited 
her grace and mercy ; in which letter, in a certain violent and mineral spirit of 
bitterness, remonstrance and representation is made to her majesty, as if my 
lord suffered under passion and faction, and not under justice mixed with mercy ; 
which letter, though written to her sacred majesty, and therefore unfit to pass in 



NOTES 3 X 3 Y — 3 2. 

vulgar hands, yet was first divulged by copies every where, that being, as it 
seemeth, the newest and finest form of libelling, and since committed to the 
press : her majesty in her wisdom seeing manifestly these rumours thus nourished 
had got too great a head to be repressed without some hearing of the cause, and 
calling my lord to answer." 

3 X. Life, p. lviii. 

The following is from the Lord's Charge in opening the cause. " And yet 
on the other side, being still informed touching my lord himself of his continu- 
ance of penitence and submission, did in conclusion resolve to use justice, but 
with the edge and point taken off and rebated ; for whereas nothing leaveth that 
teint upon honour, which in a person of my lord's condition is hardliest repaired, 
in question of justice, as to be called to the ordinary and open place of offen- 
ders and criminals, her majesty had ordered that the hearing should be intra do- 
mesticos parietes, and not luceforensi. And whereas again in the Star-chamber 
there be certain formalities not fit in regard of example to be dispensed with, 
which would strike deeper both into my lord's fortune and reputation ; as the 
fine which is incident to a sentence there given, and the imprisonment of the 
Tower, which in case of contempts that touch the point of estate doth likewise 
follow ; her majesty turning this course had directed that the matters should 
receive, before a great honorable and selected council, a full and deliberate, and 
yet in respect a private, mild, and gracious hearing." 

3 Y. Life, p. lix. 

Bacon's account of the whole proceeding is as follows : " And then did 
some principal counsellers send for us of the learned counsel, and notify her 
majesty's pleasure unto us, save that it was said to me openly by one of them, 
that her majesty was not yet resolved whether she would have me forborn in the 
business or no. And hereupon might arise that other sinister and untrue speech 
that I heard is raised of me, how I was a suitor to be used against my Lord of 
Essex at that time : for it is very true, that I that knew well what had passed 
between the Queen and me, and what occasion I had given her both of distaste 
and distrust, incrossing her disposition, by standing steadfastly for my Lord of 
Essex, and suspecting it also to be a stratagem arising from some particular 
emulation, I writ to her two or three words of compliment, signifying to her 
majesty, that if she would be pleased to spare me in my Lord of Essex's cause, 
out of the consideration she took of my obligation towards him, I should reckon 
it for one of her greatest favours : but otherwise desiring her majesty to think that 
I knew the degrees of duties, and that not particular obligation whatsoever to 
any subject could supplant or weaken that entiredness of duty that I did owe and 
bear to her and her service ; and this was the goodly suit I made, being a res- 
pect no man that had his wits could have omitted : but nevertheless I had a 
further reach in it ; for I judged that day's work would be a full period of any 
bitterness or harshness between the Queen and my lord, and therefore if I 
declared myself fully according to her mind at that time, which could not do my 
lord any manner of prejudice, I should keep my credit with her ever after, 
whereby to do my lord service." — Bacon's Apology, vol. vi. 256. 

3 Z. Life, p. lx. 

The following is the whole of that passage. " There is formed in every thing 
a double nature of good, the one as every thing is a total or substantive in itself, 
the other as it is a part or member of a greater body ; whereof the latter is in 
degree the greater and the worthier, because it tendeth to the conservation of a 
more general form : therefore we see the iron in particular sympathy moveth to 
the loadstone, but yet if it exceed a certain quantity, it forsaketh the affection to 
the loadstone, and like a good patriot moveth to the earth, which is the region 
and country of massy bodies ; so may we go forward and see that water and 



NOTES 4 A — 4 B. 

mass}- bodies move to the centre of the earth, but rather than to suffer a divulsion 
in the continuance of nature they will move upwards from the centre of the 
earth, forsaking their duty to the earth in regard of their duty to the world. 
This double nature of good and the comparative thereof is much more engraven 
upon man, if he degenerate not, unto whom the conservation of duty to the public 
ought to be much more precious than the conservation of life and being ; 
according to that memorable speech of Pompeius Magnus, when being in com- 
mission of purveyance for a famine at Rome, and being dissuaded with great 
vehemency and instance by his friends about him, that he should not hazard 
himself to sea in an extremity of weather, he said only to them, Necesse est ut 
earn, non nt vivam" 

4 A. Life, p. lxii. 

As a patron he considered preferment a sacred trust for the encouragement of 
merit. Poicer to do good is, he says, the true and lawful end of aspiring, for good 
thoughts though God accept them, are little better than good dreams except they be 
put in act. " Detur digniori" was therefore his favourite maxim. *' Qui bene- 
ficium digno dat, omnes obligat.'' And in this spirit, upon sending to Buck- 
ingham his patent for creating him a viscount, he says, " I recommend unto you 
principally, that which I think was never done since I was born ; and that which 
because it was not done, hath bred almost a wilderness and solitude in the King's 
service ; which is that you countenance and encourage and advance able men 
in all kinds, degrees, and professions. For in the time of the Cecils, the father 
and the son, able men were by design and of purpose suppressed : and though 
of late, choice goeth better, both in church and commonwealth, yet money and 
serving, and cunning canvasses, and importunity prevaileth too much. And in 
places of moment, rather make able and honest men yours, than advance those 
that are otherwise because they are yours." 

And within a few weeks after he was appointed Lord Keeper, he thus wrote 
to a Clergyman of Trinity College. 

" After my hearty commendations, I, having heard of you as a man well de- 
serving and of able gifts to become profitable in the church ; and there being 
fallen within my gift the Rectory of Frome St. Quintin, with the Chapel of 
Evershot in Dorsetshire, which seems to be a thing of good value, 18/. in the 
King's books and in a good county, I have thought good to make offer of it to 
you ; the rather for that you are of Trinity College, whereof myself was some 
time. And my purpose is to make choice of men rather by care and inquiry, 
than by their own suits and commendatory letters. So T bid you farewell. 

From your loving Friend, Fr. Bacon, C. S. 

From Dorset House, 23rd April, 1617. 
To Mr. Massey, Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. 

4B. Life, p. lxii. 

In his advancement of learning he has thus explained the custom of the 
ancients in hearing the opposite reasonings of the same powerful mind, which 
has occasionally existed and did exist, in the time of Elizabeth, in our Courts of 
Justice in England. 

Strange as, from our habits, this may be considered, there is nothing new in 
the suggestion. When Alexander was feasting one night where Calisthenes 
was at the table, it was moved by some after supper, for entertainment sake, that 
Calisthenes, who was an eloquent man, might speak of some theme or purpose, 
at his own choice : which Calisthenes did ; choosing the praise of the Mace- 
donian nation for his discourse, and performing the same with so good manner 
as the hearers were much ravished : whereupon Alexander, nothing pleased, 
said, " It was easy to be eloquent upon so good a subject." " But," saith he, 
" turn your style, and let us hear what you can say against us :" which Calis- 
thenes presently undertook, and did with that sting and life, that Alexander in- 



NOTE 4 B. 

terrupted him, and said, " The goodness of the cause made him eloquent before, 
and despite made him eloquent again." 

In the Harleian MSS. in the British Museum, it is stated as follows : — 
Elizabeth, Queen of England, was a princess most entirely beloved of the 
people, for during her government pure justice and mercy did overflow in all 
courts of judicature, which made her so famous, that upon any motion abroad 
from her palace, many thousands would crowd into the streets and highways, 
to congratulate her with their loyalty, and loud acclamations sent up to heaven 
for her majesty's long life, health, and prosperity. And in this peerless queen's 
reign it is reported that there was but one serjeant-at-law at the Common Pleas 
bar (called Serjeant Benlowes) who was ordered to plead both for the plaintiff 
and defendant, for which he was to take of each party ten groats only and no 
more ; and to manifest his impartial dealing to both parties, he was therefore to 
wear a party-coloured gown, and to have a black cap on his head of impartial 
justice, and under it a white linen coif of innocence, but in the reign of King 
James Serjeants were made in abundance, and a Serjeant's place sold for 800/. ; 
and in the late King Charles the First's reign, the preferment to be a Serjeant 
grew to a higher rate, for it was then raised to 1500/. and thirteen made at one 
time, so strangely differing are the proceedings in law in these latter times to the 
former, that requires the use of many lawyers, and they to have unreasonable 
fees. 

And I understand that, within the last twenty years, when there was but one 
barrister at the Ely Sessions (Mr. Hart), he used to argue on both sides. 

This practice seems to have existed in all civilized countries, and countries 
approaching to civilization. In some travels in Africa, (Park's, if I mistake 
not) the author says, that the litigation is conducted, not by the parties them- 
selves, but by persons called " palavers." Milton, in his history of Muscovy, 
two hundred years ago, vol. iv. 278, says, " They have no lawyers, but every 
man pleads his own cause, or else by bill or answer in writing delivers it with 
his own hands to the duke ; yet justice, by corruption of inferior officers, is 
much perverted. Where other proof is wanting, they may try the matter by 
personal combat or by champion. If a debtor be poor, he becomes bondman 
to the duke, who lets out his labour till it pay the debt ; till then he remains in 
bondage. 

In the Edinburgh Review for February, 1822, upon the question whether a 
prisoner accused of felony ought to be heard by counsel 1 — the author says, 
' £ Whence comes it, that the method of getting at truth, which is so excellent 
on all common occasions, should be considered as so improper on the greatest 
of all occasions, where the life of a man is concerned 1 If an acre of land is to 
be lost or won, one man says all that can be said on one side of the question — 
another on the other; and the jury, aided by the impartiality of the judge, 
decide. The wit of man can devise no better method of disentangling difficulty, 
exposing falsehood, and detecting truth." 

" Justice is found, experimentally, to be most effectually promoted by the 
opposite efforts of practised and ingenious men, presenting to the selection of an 
impartial judge, the best arguments for the establishment and explanation of 
truth. It becomes, then, under such an arrangement, the decided duty of an 
advocate to use all the arguments in his power to defend the cause he has 
adopted, and to leave the effect of those arguments to the judgment of others." 
— Sidney Smith. 

Milton seems not to have been partial to the character of a lawyer. In his 
tract on education, vol. i. 276, he says, " Some, allured to the trade of law, 
grounding their purposes not on the prudent and heavenly contemplation of 
justice and equity, which was never taught them, but on the promising and- 
pleasing thoughts of litigious terms, fat contentions, and flowing fees." Vol. ii. 
56. " It is true an adulteress cannot be shamed enough by any public pro- 
ceeding ; but the woman whose honour is not appeached is less injured by a 
silent dismission, being otherwise not illiberally dealt with, than to endure a 
clamouring debate of utterless things, in a business of that civil secresy and 
difficult discerning, as not to be overmuch questioned by nearest friends ; which 



NOTE 4B. 

drew that answer from the greatest and worthiest Roman of his time, Paulus 
Emilius, being demanded why he would put away his wife for no visible reason 1 
' This shoe,' said he, and held it out on his foot, ' is a neat shoe, a new shoe, 
and yet none of you know where it wrings me ;" much less by the unfamiliar 
cognizance of a feed gamester can such a private difference be examined, neither 
ought it. 

The following extract is from Boswell's Life of Johnson, vol. ii. p. 162. I 
asked him whether, as a moralist, he did not think that the practice of the law, 
in some degree, hurt the fine feeling of honesty. Johnson. " Why no, Sir, if 
you act properly. You are not to deceive your clients with false representations 
of your opinion : you are not to tell lies to a judge.'' Boswell. " But what do 
you think of supporting a cause which you know to be bad." Johnson. " Sir, 
you do not know it to be good or bad till the judge determines it. I have said 
that you are to state facts fairly ; so that your thinking, or what you call know- 
ing, a cause to be bad, must be from reasoning, must be from your supposing 
your arguments to be weak and inconclusive. But, Sir, that is not enough. An 
argument which does not convince yourself, may convince the judge to whom 
you urge it; and, if it does convince him, why, then, Sir, you are wrong, and 
he is right. It is his business to judge ; and, you are not to be confident in your 
opinion that a cause is bad, but to say all you can for your client, and then hear 
the judge's opinion." Boswell. " But, Sir, does not affecting a warmth when 
you have no warmth, and appearing to be clearly of one opinion, when you are 
in reality of another opinion, does not such dissimulation impair one*s honesty? 
Is there not some danger that a lawyer may put on the same mask in common 
life, in the intercourse with his friends'?" Johnson. "Why no, Sir. Every 
body knows you are paid for affecting warmth for your client ; and it is, there- 
fore, properly no dissimulation : the moment you come from the bar you resume 
your usual behaviour. Sir, a man will no more carry the artifice of the bar into 
the common intercourse of society, than a man who is paid for tumbling upon 
his hands will continue to tumble upon his hands when he should walk on his 
feet." 

Lord Erskine, in his defence of Thomas Paine, says, I will for ever, at all 
hazards, assert the dignity, independence, and integrity of the English bar ; 
without which impartial justice, the most valuable part of the English constitu- 
tion, can have no existence. From the moment that any advocate can be per- 
mitted to say that he will or will not stand between the crown and the subject 
arraigned in the court where he daily sits to practise, from that moment the 
liberties of England are at an end. 

If the advocate refuses to defend, from what he may think of the charge or of 
the defence, he assumes the character of the judge ; nay, he assumes it before 
the hour of judgment; and, in proportion to his rank and reputation, puts the 
heavy influence of, perhaps, a mistaken opinion, into the scale against the ac- 
cused, in whose favour the benevolent principle of English law makes all pre- 
sumptions, and which commands the very judge to be his counsel. 

The following extract is from the life of Sir M. Hale, 143. If he saw a cause 
was unjust, he for a great while would not meddle further in it, but to give his 
advice that it was so. If the parties after that would go on, they were to seek 
another counsellor, for he would assist none in acts of injustice. If he found 
the cause doubtful or weak in point of law, he always advised his clients to 
agree their business. Yet afterwards he abated much of the scrupulosity he had 
about causes that appeared at first view unjust, upon this occasion. There were 
two causes brought to him, which by the ignorance of the party, or their attor- 
ney, were so ill represented to him, that they seemed to be very bad, but he, in- 
quiring more narrowly into them, found they were really very good and just. 
So after this he slackened much of his former strictness, of refusing to meddle in 
causes upon the ill circumstances that appeared in them at first. 

The administration of justice mainly depends upon the ability and the inte- 
grity of the bar. Who, in times when our liberties are threatened, when power 
is attempting to extend its influence ; who but men of ability can be expected to 
resist these invasions 1 Is it to be expected that the herd who follow any body 

vol. xv. 8 



NOTE 4 C. 

that whistles to them, or drives them to pasture, will have the honesty and cou- 
rage upon such occasions to despise all personal considerations, and to think of 
no consequence' but what may result to the public from the faithful discharge of 
their sacred trust? When Sir Matthew Hale, in the case of Lord Craven, 
pleaded so forcibly for his client, that in those miserable times, he was threatened 
by the then Attorney General, with the vengeance of the government, " I am 
pleading," he replied, " in defence of those laws which the parliament have de- 
clared they will maintain and preserve ; I am doing my duty to my client, and 
I am not to be daunted." The hardminded and mistaken Jefferies, said to Mr. 
Wallop, on Baxter's trial, " I observe you are in all these dirty causes, and were 
it not for you gentlemen of the long robe, who should have more wit and honesty 
than to uphold these factious knaves by the chin, we should not be at the pass 
we are at." Similar language disgraced the bench on the trial of the seven 
bishops, but Mr. Hale and Mr. Somers were not likely to be deterred by such 
conduct from the discharge of their duties. 

4 C. Life, p. Ixx. 

Accounts of this trial may be found in Bacon's works, in the Sydney Papers, 
in Camden, and in Morrison. Bacon's account will be found in vol. vi. of 
this edition, p. 276. The accounts from the Sydney Papers, from Camden, and 
from Morrison are annexed. 

Account of the Trial from the Sydney Papers. 

Row. Whyte, Esq. to Sir Rob. Sydney. S. L. Vol. ii. p. 199. Penshurst, 
Friday night, 6 June, 1600. 

Yesterday my lord of Essex was at my Lord Keeper's before commissioners 
appointed to hear his cause, and to-morrow I go to court, and will learn what 
I can of it, and advertise your lordship. 

Row. Whyte, Esq. to Sir Rob. Sydney. S. L. Vol. ii. p. 199. Court in hast, 
Saturday, 7 June, 1 600. 

I am now newly come to court, where I hear how the matter passed upon 
Thursday, with my lord of Essex before the lords and other commissioners. 
The Attorney General, Serjeant Yelverton, her majesty's Solicitor, and Mr. 
Bacon, all of her highnes learned counsel, laid open his offences and contempts, 
during which time the earle himself kneeled at bord's end, and had a bundle of 
papers in his own hand, which sometimes he laid in his hat that was upon the 
ground by him. The effect of their speeches contained his making of my lord 
Southampton general of the horse, contrary to her majesty's pleasure ; his 
making of knights ; his going into Munster, contrary to his instructions ; his 
return, being expressly commanded by her majesty's own letter to stay : all which 
points were by her majesty's learned counsel very gravely and sharply touched 
and propounded against him. His speech was very discreet, mild, and gentle, 
acknowledging that he had grievously offended her majesty in all these things 
objected against him, but with no malicious intent ; and that if it would please 
their honors to give him leave, he would declare unto them the blind guides that 
led him to those errors, which in his opinion would have furthered her majesty's 
service. But then began my Lord Keeper, upon the reasons argued by her 
majesty's learned counsel, to deliver his opinion ; that his contempts deserved 
to be imprisoned in the Towre, to be fined as deeply as ever subject was, to 
have his offices of counsellor, earl marshall, and master of the ordnance seques- 
tered from him. My Lord Treasurer left out the Towre ; my Lord Admiral the 
fine. Mr. Secretary made a wise grave speech of these contempts of his towards 
her majesty ; all the rest spoke, condemning him greatly for contemptuously 
offending so gracious a sovereign ; and it was concluded that he should return 
from the place he came, till her majesty's further pleasure were known. The 
poor earl then besought their honors to be a mean unto her majesty for grace 
and pardon ; seeing there appeared in his offences no disloyalty towards her 



NOTE 4c. 

highness, but ignorance and indiscretion in himself. I hear it was a most 
pitiful and lamentable sight, to see him that was the mignion of fortune, now 
unworthy of the least honor he had of many ; many that were present burst out 
in tears at his fall to such misery. 

Row. Whyte, Esq. to Sir Rob. Sydney. S. L. Vol. ii. p. 200. Baynard's 
Castle, Wednesday, 11 June, 1600. 

I heard since about the Earl of Essex, that the Attorney General in his speech 
would have proved wilful and malicious contempts to have been disloyalty in 
him, and brought forth these words : Regina vidit, consul vidit, senatus vidit, 
hie tamen vivit. To this his lordship answered, that he was forced to alter his 
purpose of coming to that place, which was not to justify himself, but to 
acknowledge his transgressions, being by his own opinion and persuasion of 
others, misled to commit these errors. But now his honor and loyalty was called 
in question, he should do God great wrong and his own conscience ; and if I do 
not justify myself an, honest man (taking his George, and putting it with his 
hand towards his heart), this hand shall pull out this heart when any disloyal 
thought shall enter into it. But the lords interrupted his speech, clearing him 
generally of that, and proceeded to their censure, by the way of opinion only, to 
those matters objected by the Queen's learned counsel against him. Something 
he said to all these, but no way to justify himself, and with all humble submis- 
siveness besought her majesty's mercy. The lords did all admire at his discre- 
tion and carriage, who never was moved at any speech was spoken against him, 
but with patience heard all was said ; sometimes kneeling, one while standing, 
another while leaning at a cupboard, and at last he had a stool given him ; but 
never offered to leave kneeling, till the Lord Archbishop of Canterbury desired 
he might stand, and then that he might leane, and lastly, that he might sit. 
For they began at nine in the morning, and it continued till eight at night, 
without removing. The lords did in a sort give him this comfort, that her 
majesty would be gracious unto him ; in the meantime all his offices are seques- 
tered from him. The master of the horse was not mentioned, because it was 
not by patent, and a deputy by the Queen appointed, which is my lord of 
Worcester, till his return to court ; so that if he come not again, then is he 
still to execute it as he doth. The judges made his contempts very heinous by 
the laws of the land, and by examples, and by the civil law criminal. The poor 
earl continues still with a keeper at his own house until her majesty's pleasure 
be further known, who, as it seems, is not resolved what she will do with him. 
Her majesty is very much quieted and satisfied to see, that the lords of her 
council, her nobility, and the grave judges of her land, do hold him worthy of 
far more punishment than hath been inflicted against him. Some think his 
keeper shall be removed this week, and that he shall have the liberty of his 
houses in London and Barnelmes, and that he shall have his friends come to 
him ; there are others that do believe that he shall continue as he doth some time 
longer. 

Camden's Account of the Trial. 

But whereas the vulgar sort spread abroad his innocency every where, it 
seemed good to the Queen, for removing of all suspicion of too much severity, 
injustice, and prejudice from herself and her counsel, that his case should be 
plainly heard (not in the Star Chamber, lest he should be heavily fined, but) in 
the Lord Keeper's house, before the Queen's councell, four earls, two barons, 
and four judges, and that, as it were, a certain censorious animadversion should 
be used, yet without any note of perfidiousness. The chief heads of the accusa- 
tion against him were these : that contrary to that he had in charge, he had 
made the Earl of Southampton general of the horse ; that he had bestowed the 
dignity of knighthood upon many ; that he had drawn his forces into Munster, 
neglecting Tir-Oen, the archrebel ; that he had conference with him not be- 
seemiug the Queen's majesty, nor the dignity of a lord deputy ; and which was 
the more suspect, because it was in secret. All these points the Queen's 
learned councell had highly aggravated, producing out of his letters, written 



NOTE 4 C. 

above two years before (whereof copies were lately dispersed by his followers), 
these short abrupt sentences : " No tempest is more furious than the indigna- 
tion of an impotent prince ; the Queen's heart is hardened. Cannot princes 
err 1 Can they not wrong their subjects 1 What I owe as a subject I know 
well, and what as earl marshal of England." From hence they argued, as if 
he esteemed the Queen for an impotent princess, and voyd of reason ; compared 
her to Pharaoh, whose heart was hardened, that she cared no longer for truth 
and justice ; and as if he besides his fidelity, ought neither obedience nor thank- 
fulness. Some points also of lesser moment they objected unto him out of a 
book of the deposing of Richard the Second, dedicated unto him. He kneeling 
at the table, upon one knee, thanked Almighty God for all his benefits, and his 
most gracious princess, which would not have his cause to be heard publickly in 
the Star Chamber, but commanded that cup to pass (for these were his words), 
and him to be censured within a private house. He professed therefore that he 
would not contest with her, nor in the whole, or in part, excuse the errors of his 
young inconsiderate years, and of his weakness. He protested that he had most 
sincerely kept his allegiance, and had not had so much as a thought not to obey, 
and that he would ever be obedient. Briefly, that in all things his meaning was 
good, howsoever it fell out otherwise, and that now he would bid the world 
farewell. And withal he shed plenty of tears ; the standers by also wept with 
him for joy, out of the great hope they had of him. Yet could he not contain 
himself, but begun to make excuse, that he had made Southampton general of 
the horse out of a credulous error that the Queen would admit the reasons which 
he yielded ; but they being rejected, he presently displaced him. That he had 
bestowed the dignity of knighthood upon many, that he' might retain the gentle- 
men volunteers about him. That he had undertaken the war in Munster, by 
the inconsiderate advice of the councel of Ireland. That Ormond, the principal 
of them, rued the same, by the loss of his sight, and Sir Warham St. Leger, by 
a cruel death. As he was going forward, the Lord Keeper stayed him, and put 
him in mind to go forward as he had first begun, and to fly to th© Queen's 
mercy, who would not have him charged with perfidiousness, but with contempt 
and disobedience ; and not to pretend obedience in words which in deeds he 
had little performed. For by extenuating his offences he might seem to exte- 
nuate the Queen's clemency. That it was absurd to shadow open disobedience 
with the will to obey. What every one said it is needless to repeat, seeing they 
were in a manner the same which were either before spoken, or after to be 
spoken, in the Star Chamber. In conclusion, the Lord Keeper pronounced that 
he should be removed from the place of a counsellor, suspended from his offices 
of earl marshal and master of the ordnance, and detained in custody during the 
Queen's pleasure. These censures the rest approved by their voices, and many 
conceived good hope that he should ere long be received again into favor ; for- 
asmuch as the Queen had expressly commanded that he should not be suspended 
from his mastership of the horse (as if she would use his service again), and 
that this censure should by no means remain upon record. 

Morrison's Account of the Trial. 

Give me leave to digresse a little, to one of the fatall periods of Robert, the 
noble Earle of Essex his tragedy (and the last but one, which was his death), 
whereof the following relation was sent into Ireland. The fifth of June there 
assembled at Yorke-house in London, about the hearing of my Lord of Essex 
his cause, eighteene commissioners, viz. my Lord of Canterburie, Lord Keeper, 
Lord Treasurer, Lord Admirall, Lords of Worcester, Shrewsbury, Cumberland, 
Huntington, Darby, and Zouch, Mast. Comptroller, Master Secretarie, Sir 
Thon Fortescu, Lord Popham, Chiefe Justice, Lord Anderson, Chiefe Justice 
of the Common Pleas, Lord Perian, Chiefe Baron of the Exchequer, Justices 
Gandy and Walmesley. They sate from eight of the clock in the morning, till 
very neere nine at night, all at a long table in chaires. At the earles comming 
in none of the commissioners stirred cap, or gave any signe of curtesie. He 
kneeled at the vpper end of the table, and a good while without a cushion. At 
length my Lord of Canterbury moved my Lord Treasurer, and they jointly my 



MOTE 4C. 

Lord Keeper and Lord Admirall, that sat over against them, then was he per- 
mitted a cushion, yet still was suffered to kneele, till the Queen's Serjeants 
speech was ended, when by the consent of the lords, he was permitted to stand 
vp, and after, vpon my lord of Canterburies motion, to have a stoole. 

The manner of proceeding was this. My Lord Keeper first delivered the 
cause of the assembly, and then willed the Queenes counsaile at law, viz. 
Sergeant, Attorney, Solicitor, and Master Bacon, to informe against him. The 
Sergeant began, and his speech was not long, onely a preface as it were to the 
accusations. The summe of it was, to declare the Queene's princely care and 
provision for the warres of Ireland, and also her gratious dealing with the earle 
before he went, in discharging ten thousand pound of his debts, and giving him 
almost so much more, to buy him horses, and provide himself, and especially 
in her proceedings in this cause, when, as after so great occasion of offence as 
the consumption of a royall army, fruitlesse wasting thirty hundred thousand li. 
treasure, contempt, and disobedience to her expresse commandement, she not- 
withstanding was content to be so mercifull towards him, as not to proceede 
against him in any of her courts of justice, but only in this priuate sort, by way 
of mercy and favour. After him the Attorney began, whose speech contained 
the body and substance of the accusation, it was very sharp and stinging ; for 
besides the many faults of uontempt and disobedience wherewith hee charged 
him, he did also shrewdly inferre a dangerous disposition and purpose, which 
was by many rhetoricall amplifications, aggravated to the full ; he divided his 
speech into three parts, Quomodo ingressus, quomodo progressus, quomodo re- 
gressus ; in the ingresse, hee observed how large a commission he stood upon, 
such a one as never any man had the like before, namely, that he might haue 
authoritie to pardon all traytors of himselfe, yea, to pardon treason committed 
against her maiesties owne person, and that he might mannage the warres by 
himself, without being tied to the advice of the counsell of Ireland, which clause 
hee said was granted, that he might at first proceede in the northerne iourney, 
which the counsell of Ireland (whose lands and livings lay in the south), might 
perhaps hinder, and labor to divert him, to the safeguard of themselves. In the 
other two parts of his speech were contaiaed five speciall crimes, wherewith the 
earle was charged, viz. His making the Earle of Southampton generall of the 
horse. 2. His going to Leinster and Mounster, when he should have gone to 
Vlster. 3. His making so many knights. 4. His conference with Tyrone. 
5. His returne out of Ireland, contrary to her majesties command. These all 
saving the fourth, were recited by the lords in their censures, as the crimes for 
which he was censured by them. The first was amplified, for that he did it 
contrary to her majesties mind, plainely signified unto him in England, that hee 
increased that offence, by continuing him in that office stil, when her majesty 
by letters had expressely commanded him to displace him ; and thirdly, for 
that he wrote a very bold presumptuous letter to her majesty, in excuse of that 
offence, which letter was afteiwards read. The second point of his southerne 
journy was agravated, in that it was made contrary to her majesties advised 
resolution, agreed upon by her counsel, and approved by her martial men, as 
the only means to reduce Ireland, and contrary to the earles own project, yea, 
and that without the advice of the counsel of Ireland also, as appeared by a 
letter of theirs under their hands, though now the earle pretended their advice for 
his own excuse, whereupon followed the harrowing out, and the weakning of 
the royallest army that ever went out of England, the wasting of that huge 
expence, and the overthrow of the whole action. The third point, viz. the 
making of knights, was urged to have beene contrary to her maiesties ex- 
presse commandement, a question being once made whether he should have 
that authoritie or no, because he had abused it before; yet the same being at 
the last granted, with this limitation given him in charge, that he should make 
but few, and those men of good ability, whereas he made to the number of 
threscore, and those some of his meniall servants, yea, and that in a most un- 
seasonable time, when things were at the worst, which should have been done 
upon victorie and triumph onely. The fourth point, namely, his conference 
with the rebell, was agravated, in that it was an equall and secret conference, 



NOTE 4 C. 

dishonourable to her majestie, for him that sustained her royall person, to con- 
ferre in equall sort with the basest and vilest tray tor that ever lived, a bush 
kerne, and base sonne of a blacksmith ; suspicious also, in that it was private 
and secret, no man suffered to approach, but especially no Englishman ; the 
end of the conference most shameful 1, that the wretched traytor should prescribe 
conditions to his soveraigne : abominable and odious conditions, a publike 
tolleration of idolatrous religion, pardon for himselfe, and all the traytors in 
Ireland, and full restitution of lands and possessions to all the sort of them. It 
was added, that before this parley, a messenger went secretly from the earles 
campe to the traytor, viz. Captaine Thomas Leigh, if not sent by the earle, at 
least by his conniveucy, at least by the connivencie of the marshall, whom the 
earle did not punish. Lastly, the fifth point was urged to be intollerably pre- 
sumptuous, contrary to her maiesties expresse commandement in writing, under 
the seale of her privy signet, charging him upon his dutie not to return until he 
heard further from her ; that this his returne was also exceeding dangerous, in 
that he left the army divided unto two divers men, the Earle of Ormond and the 
Lord Chancellor, men whom himselfe bad excepted against, as unfit for such a 
trust, and that he so left this army, as that if God his providence had not been 
the greater, the ruine and losse of the whole kingdome had ensued thereupon. 
This was the summe of the accusation, every part interlaced with most sharpe 
and bitter rhetoricall amplifications, which I touch not, nor am fit to write, but 
the conclusion was (whereby a taste of the same may be had) that the ingresse 
was proud and ambitious, the progresse disobedient and contemptuous, the 
regresse notorious and dangerous. Among other things, the Lady Rich her 
letter to the Queene was pressed with very bitter and hard termes : my Lady 
Rich her letter he termed an insolent, saucy, malipert action. He proposed 
also in the end a president for the earles punishment (saying, he was faine to 
seeke farre for one gentle enough): one William of Britten, Earle of Richmond, 
who refusing to come home out of France upon the king's letter, was adjudged 
to loose all his goods, lands, and chattels, and to indure perpetuall imprison- 
ment. Master Attorney particularly said the following- words, whereas the earle 
in his letter exclameth O tempora, O mores ! (for so I thinke he construed these 
words of his, O hard destiny of mine, that I cannot serve the Queene and please 
her too.) Let me also say with the orator concerning him ; Haec regina intel- 
ligit, h<ec senatus videt, hie tamen vivit. In the end of his speech, Now (saith 
he) nothing remaineth but that wee inquire quo animo ; all this was done. 
Before my lord went into Ireland, he vaunted and boasted that hee would 
fight with none but the traytor himselfe, he would pull him by the eares out of 
his den, hee would make the earle tremble under him, &c. But when he came 
thither, then no such matter, hee goes another way ; it appeareth plainely he 
meant nothing lesse than to fight with Tyrone. This was the effect of Master 
Attorney's part. Master Solliciter his speech followed, which contained the 
unhappy successe, which ensued in Ireland after the earles departure, whereby 
appeared how little good the earle had done, in that the traitor was growne much 
more confident, more insolent, and stronger than ever he was before, as appeared 
principally by his declaration, which he hath given out since the earles depar- 
ture, vaunting that he is the upholder of the Catholike faith and religion ; that 
whereas it was given out by some that he would follow the Earle of Essex into 
England, hee would perhaps shortly appeare in England, little to Englands 
good : many things he added to that purpose. 

After him Sir Francis Bacon concluded the accusation with a very eloquent 
speech. First, by way of preface, signifying, that he hoped both the earle him- 
selfe, and all that heard him, would consider that the particular bond of duty, 
which he then did and ever would acknowledge to owe unto the earle, was now 
to be sequestied, and laied aside. Then did he notably extoll her maiesties sin- 
gular grace and mercy, whereof he said the earle was a singular work, in that 
upon his humble sute, shee was content not to prosecute him in her court of jus- 
tice, the Starre-chamber, but according to his owne earnest desire, to remove 
that cup from him (those, he said, were the earles own words in his letter), and 
now to suffer his cause to be heard, Inter privatos parietes, by way of mercy and 



isroxE 4 c. 

favour onely, where no manner of disloyalty was laide to his charge, for (quoth he) 
if that had beene the question, this had not beene the place. Afterwards passing 
along most eloquently through, the earles iourney into Ireland, hee came to charge 
him with two points not spoken of before. The first was a letter written by the 
earle unto my Lord Keeper, very boldly and presumptuously, in derogation to 
her maiesty, which letter he also said was published by the earles own friends. 
The poiuts of the letter which he stood upon were these ; No tempest to the 
passionate indignation of a prince ; as if her maiesty were devoid of reason, 
carried away with passion (the onely thing that ioineth man and beast toge- 
ther) : her maiesties heart is obdurate, he would not say that the earle meant 
to compare her absolutely to Pharaoh, but in this particular onely, which must 
needs be very odious. Cannot princes erre 1 cannot subjects suffer wrong ? as 
if her maiesty had lost her vertues of judgement, justice, &c. Farre be it from 
me (quoth he) to attribute divine properties to mortal princes, yet this I must 
truly say, that by the common law of England, a prince can doe no wrong. 
The last point of that letter was a distinction of the duty a subject oweth to his 
prince, that the duty of allegiance is the onely indissolueble duty, what then 
(quoth he) is the duty of gratitude 1 what the duty of obedience, &c. The 
second point of Master Bacon's accusation was, that a certaine dangerous 
seditious pamphlet was of late put forth into print, concerning the first yeeres of 
the raigne of Henry the Fourth, but indeed the end of Richard the Second, and 
who thought fit to be patron of that booke, but my lord of Essex, who after the 
booke had beene out a weeke, wrote a cold formall letter to my lord of Canter- 
bury, to call it in againe, knowing belike that forbidden things are most sought 
after : this was the effect of his speech. The speciall points of the whole accu- 
sation were afterwards proved by the earles owne letters, by some of her maiesties 
letters, and the counsels, and by the letter of the Earle of Ormond and others of 
the counsell of Ireland, openly red by the clerke of the counsell. 

The accusation ended, the earle kneeling, beganne to speake for himselfe, in 
effect thus much : That ever since it pleased her gracious maiestie to remove 
that cup from him (which he acknowledged to have been at his humble sute), 
and to change the course of proceeding against him, which was intended in the 
Starre-chamber ; he laied aside all thought of justifying himselfe in any of his 
actions, and that therefore he had now resolved with himselfe never to make 
any contestation with his soveraigne : that he had made a divorce betwixt him- 
selfe and the world, if God and his soveraigne would give him leave to bold it ; 
that the inward sorrow and afflictions which he had laied upon his soule 
privately, betwixt God and his conscience, for the great offence against her 
majesty, was more then any outward crosse or affliction that could possibly 
befall him. That he would never excuse himselfe, neither a toto nor a tanto, 
from whatsoever crimes of errour, negligence, or inconsiderate rashues, which 
his youth, folly, or manifold infirmities might leade him into, onely he must 
ever professe a loyail faithfull unspotted heart, unfained affection and desire, 
ever to doe her majesty the best service he could, which rather than he would 
lose, he would, if Christianity and charity did permit, first teare his heart out of 
his breast with his owne hands. But this alwaies preserved untouched, he was 
most willing to confesse and acknowledge whatsoever errours and faults it 
pleased her maiesty to impute vnto him. The first part of his speech drew 
plenty of teares from the eyes of many of the hearers ; for it was uttered with 
great passion, and the words excellently ordered, and it might plainely appeare 
that he had intended to speake no more for himselfe. But being touched (as it 
seemed) with the oversharpe speeches of his accusers, he humbly craved of their 
lordships, that whereas he had perceived many rhetoricall inferences and insi- 
nuations given out by his accusers, which might argue a disloyall, malicious, 
wicked, and corrupt affection in him, they would give him leave, not in any sort 
to excuse himself, but only by way of explanation, to lay downe unto them those 
false guides which had deceived him, and led him into all his errours, and so he 
entered into a kind of answering Master Atturnies speech, from point to point 
in order, alleaging, for the point of his large commission for pardoning treason 
against her maiesties person, that it was a thing he had learned of Master 



NOTE 4 G. 

Attoumey himselfe, onely to meete with the rebels curiosity, which had ail 
opinion, that all treason in Ireland might be interpreted treason against her 
maiesties person, and therefore would trust no pardon without t that clause. 
That in making the Earle of Southampton generall of the horse, the deceive- 
able guide which misled him, was an opinion that her majesty might have 
been satisfied with those reasons which moved him, as also with those reasons 
which he had alleaged in his letters, for continuance of him in the place, 
but that after he perceived her maiesties mind plainely in her second letter, 
he displaced him the next day. For his journey into Mounster, hee alleaged 
divers things, principally that the time of the yeere would not serve for an 
Vlster journey, and then the advice of the counsel there, which he protested 
to alleage not to excuse himselfe, but rather to accuse his owne errours, and 
the errours of the counsellors in Ireland : and whereas some of them to ex- 
cuse themselves, and charge him the deeper, had now written the contrary to 
the counsell : he protested deepely that therein they had dealt most falsely, and 
it seemeth (saith he) that God his just revenge hath overtaken two of them 
already, the Earle of Ormond by blindnesse, and Sir William St. Leger, by vio- 
lent death. For his making of knigbts, he alleaged the necessity and straights 
he was driven unto, that being the onely way he had to retaine the voluntaries, 
the strength and pride of the army ; that he made but two of his servants, and 
those men of speciall desert and good ability : that he thought his service" ought 
not to be any barre against them, for the receiving the reward of their deserts. 
But before he had thus waded through halfe his answer, my Lord Keeper inter- 
rupted him, and told him, that this was not the course that was like to doe him 
good ; that be beganne very well in submitting himselfe unto her maiesties mercy 
and pardon, which he, with the rest of the lords, were glad to heare ; and no 
doubt but her princely and gracious nature was by that way most like to be 
inclined to him : that all extenuating of his offence was but the extenuating of 
her maiesties mercy in pardoning : that he, with all the rest of the lords, would 
cleere him of all suspition of disloyalty; and therefore he might doe well to 
spare the rest of his speech, and save time, and commit himselfe to her maiesties 
mercy. And when the earle replied, that it might appeare by that hedge which 
he diligently put to all his answers, that he spake nothing but only to cleere 
himselfe from a malicious corrupt affection. My Lord Keeper told him againe, 
that if thereby he meant the crime of disloyalty, it was that which he needed 
not to feare ; he was not charged with it, as the place and course taken against 
him might warrant ; all that was now laied unto him was contempt and disobe- 
dience. And if he intended to persuade them, that he had disobeyed indeed, 
but not with a purpose of disobeying, that were frivolous and absurd. Then 
my Lord Treasurer beganne to speake, and cleering the earle from suspition of 
disloyalty, did very soundly controll diuers of his other excuses. After him 
Master Secretary, making a preface why he spake before his turne, by reason of 
his place, tooke the matter in hand, and first notably cleering the earle from all 
suspition of disloyalty, which he protested he did from his conscience, and after- 
wards often iterated the same, and preserved it unto him entire, he spake singu- 
larly for the justifying of her majesty's special care and wisdom for the warres 
in Ireland, in providing whatsoever could be demanded by the earle for that 
service before his going out ; with supplying him afterwards with whatsoever 
hee could aske, so it were possible to bee given him : in prescribing that course, 
which had it beene followed, was the onely way to have reduced that realme, 
and which being forsaken, was the onely ruine and losse of that royall army. 
And as for all those excuses which the earle alleaged for himselfe, hee cleerely 
cut them off, shewing that his excuse of following the counsell of Irelands 
advice, was nothing, his commission being so large, that he was not bound to 
follow them ; and if he had beene, yet were they a counsell at his command ; he 
might force them to say what he list : his own letters which he alleaged, might 
be provisionary, written of purpose then to excuse him now. To be short, he 
greatly j ustified her maiesties wisdome, in managing that whole action, as much 
as lay in her, and laid the whole fault of the bad successe in Ireland upon the 
earles ominous iourney (so he called it) into Mounster. And thus, in the be- 



NOTE 4 C. 

halfe of her majesty, he fully satisfied the auditors. Master Secretary gave the 
earle his right alwaies, and shewed more curtesie than any j yet, saied he, the 
earle in all his iourney did nothing else but make (as it were) circles of errours, 
which were all bound up in the unhappy knot of his disobedient returne. Also 
he gave the earle free liberty to interrupt him at any time in his speech. But 
the earle being contented with the opinion of loyalty so cleerely reserved unto 
him, was most willing to beare the whole burthen of all the rest of t the accusa- 
tion, and therefore never used any further reply ; onely by reason of a question 
or two, that were moved by my Lord of Canterbury and my Lord Admirall : 
some little speech there was to and fro. My Lord of Canterburies question 
was concerning the conditions of yeelding unto Tyrone in tolleration of religion ; 
the earle heartily thanked him for moving that doubt, and then protested, that it 
was a thing mentioned in deed, but never yeelded unto by him, nor yet stood 
upon by the traitor, to whom the earl had said plainely, Hang thee up, thou 
carest for religion as much as my horse. Master Secretary also cleered the earle 
in that respect, that he never yeelded to Tyrone in that foule condition, though 
by reason of Tyrones vaunting afterwards, it might have some shew of proba- 
bility. By reason of my Lord Admirals question, the earle spake somewhat of 
his returne, that he did it upon a false ground of hope, that her majesty might 
pardon him, as shee did the Earle of Leicester in the like case, who returned out 
of the Low Countries, contrary to her majesties expresse letter. This I thought 
with myselfe (quoth the earle) if Leicester were pardoned, whose end was onely 
to saue himselfe, why might not Essex be pardoned, whose end was to save a 
kingdome. But Master Secretary replied, that upon his knowledge there never 
passed any letter from her majesty, to forbid the Earle of Leicester's returne. 

Judge Walmesley his speech was more blunt then bitter : Prisoners at our 
barres (saith he) are more gracelesse, they will not confesse their faults. 
Againe, he compared my lord his comming home, and leaving the army there, 
to a shepheard that left his flocke to the keeping of his dogge. 

In conclusion, the earle protested, that all he sought for was the opinion of a 
true and a loyall subject, which might appeare by the speech wherewith he 
hedged in all his answeres, namely, that he intended onely to shew those false 
guides which misled him, whether they were his owne errours, or the errours of 
his counsillors, whom he followed, that he yeelded himselfe wholly to her 
maiesties mercy and favour, and was ready to offer up his poor carkasse unto 
her, he would not say to doe (for alasse he had no faculties), but to suffer what- 
soever her majesty should inflict upon him, and so requested them all to make 
a just, honourable, and fauourable report of his disordered speeches, which had 
fallen from him in such sort, as his aking head and body weakened with sick- 
nesse, would give him leave. This done, they proceeded to the censure. 

My Lord Keeper beganne with a good, powerfull, and eloquent speech. That 
by justice and clemency the throne is established ; as for mercy, her majesty 
had reserved it to herselfe ; but for the satisfying of her justice, shee had 
appointed them to enquire into the cause. That they were to enquire onely of 
those faults of contempts and disobedience laid unto the earle, and to censure 
him accordinglv, and for her mercy they had nothing to do with it ; onely God 
was to worke it in her princely breast. In examining the earles faults, he laid 
these for his grounds : that the two grounds and foundations of the princes 
scepter and estate, are the reputation of a diligent and carefull providence for 
the preservation of her estate and countries, and the obedience of her subiects ; 
and he that should take either of these from her, should take from her the crowne 
and scepter. For the first, he notably shewed at large, how her maiesty had 
deserved it in the whole course of the Irish warres ; for obedience, he shewed the 
nature of it, consisting in precisely following the streight line of the princes 
commandement, and upon that straine he amplified to the uttermost all the 
earles contempts and disobediences, that her maiesties great mercy might appeare 
the more cleerly. Among the rest, (for he went through them all in order) he 
answered thus to the pretence of Leicesters president for excuse of the earles 
returne. In good things the example is better then the imitation of another ; 
he that doth wel of his owne head, doth best, and he that doth wel by imitation, 

vol. xv. 9 



NOTES 4 C 4 D. 

doth commendably in a lesse degree ; but in bad things the proportion is other- 
wise, the example being naught, the imitation is worse : therefore if my Lord of 
Leicester did evill, in comming over contrary to the Queenes commandement, 
my Lord of Essex did worse in imitating my Lord of Leicester, and is so much 
the more to be punished for it. In the end he came to the censure, which was 
this. If, quoth he, this cause had beene heard in the Starre-chamber, my sen- 
tence must have been so great a fine as ever was set upon any man's head in 
that court, and perpetuall imprisonment in that place which belongeth to a man 
of his quality, that is the Tower ; but now that we are in another place, and in 
a course of favour, my censure is, that he is not to execute the office of a coun- 
sellor, nor to holde himselfe for a counsellor of estate, nor to execute the office 
of earle marshall of England, nor of the master of the ordinance, and to returne 
to his owne house, there to continue a prisoner as before, till it shall please her 
majesty to release both this and all the rest. 

After my Lord Keeper all the rest in order gave their censures (amplifying 
her majesties clemency and the earles offences), according to the manner in the 
Starre-chamber ; but all accorded to this censure, (for so they called it, and not 
a sentence), Master Secretary said, my censure is, that the earle deserveth, &c. 
The greater part of the day was spent in the lords censures, who were many of 
them very long, onely the noble men (not counsellors) were short. 

The Earle of Worcester cited these two verses ; 

Scilicet a superis etiam fortuna luenda est, 
Nee veniant, laeso numine, casus habet. 

Even for our fortune gods may cast us downe, 
Neither can chance excuse, if a god frowne. 

The Earle of Cumberland said, if he thought that censure should stand, he 
would crave longer time, for it seemed unto hime somewhat hard and heavy, 
intimating how easily a generall commander might incurre the like ; but (quoth 
hee) in confidence of her maiesties mercy, I agree with the rest. 

The Lord Zouch would give no other censure, but that which he thought the 
earle would lay upon himselfe, that was, thai he would restraine himselfe from 
executing his offices, &c. and keepe himselfe in his house, till her majesty shall 
release all. 

They all seemed by their speeches to conceive a sure hope of her majesties 
releasing this censure, and the earl was reasonably chearefull, onely his body 
seemed weake and distempered with sicknesse, and now and then he shewed 
most manifest tokens of sorrow for his offence to her maiesty, by teares in his 
eyes (specially in the first part of his owne speech, and when my Lord Keeper 
spake). 

[Fynes Moryson's Itinerary, fol. Lond. 1617. Part II. Ireland, anno 
1600. pp. 68—74. 

4 D. Life, p. lxxviii. 

A Letter to the Earl of Essex, in offer of his service when he was first enlarged 
to Essex House. 

My Lord, — No man can expound my doings better than your lordship, which 
makes me need to say the less ; only I humbly pray you to believe, that I aspire 
to the conscience and commendation of bonus civis, and bonus vir ; and that 
though I love some things better, I confess, than I love your lordship, yet I love 
few persons better ; both for gratitude's sake, and for your virtues, which cannot 
hurt but by accident, of which my good affection it may please your lordship to 
assure yourself, and of all the true effect and offices I can yield. For as I was 
ever sorry your lordship should fly with waxen wings, doubting Icarus's fortune, 
so for the growing up of your own feathers, be they ostriches or other kind, no 
man shall be more glad. And this is the axletree whereon I have turned and 
shall turn. Which having already signified to you by some near mean, having 



NOTES 4 D 4E. 

so fit a messenger for mine own letter, I thought good also to redouble by 
writing. And so I commend you to God's protection. From Gray's Inn, this 
9th day of July, 1600. (a) 

An Answer of my Lord of Essex to the immediately preceding Letter of 
Mr. Bacon's. 

Mr. Bacon, — I can neither expound nor censure your late actions, being 
ignorant of all of them, save one, and having directed my sight inward only, to 
examine myself. You do pray me to believe that you only aspire to the 
conscience and commendation of bonus civis and bonus vir ; and I do faithfully 
assure you, that while that is your ambition (though your course be active and 
mind contemplative), yet we shall both, convenire in eodem tertio, and convenire 
inter nos ipsos. Your profession of affection, and offer of good offices, are wel- 
come to me ; for answer to them I will say but this, that you have believed I 
have been kind to you ; and you may believe that I cannot be other, either 
upon humour or mine own election. I am a stranger to all poetical conceits, 
or else I should say somewhat of your poetical example. But this I must say, 
that I never flew with other wings, than desire to merit and confidence in my 
sovereign's favour ; and when one of these wings failed me, I would light no- 
where but at my sovereign's feet, though she suffered me to be bruised with my 
fall. And till her majesty, that knows I was never bird of prey, finds it to 
agree with her will, and her service, that my wings should be imped again, I 
have committed myself to the mue. No power, but my God's and my sove- 
reign's, can alter this resolution of your retired friend, Essex. 

If it is imagined that the apparent coldness of this letter ought to be ascribed 
to injured feeling, to that lofty spirit, which could not brook any real or apparent 
opposition, let the time when it was written : let it be connected with the letters 
in note E : let the conclusion of the letter, beginning at " till her majesty," 
and let Bacon's accidental account of these letters in page Ixxxi, " and having 
received from his lordship a courteous and loving acceptation of my good will 
and endeavours," be considered ; and it will, perhaps, clearly appear that this 
was a letter intended to be seen by the Queen. 

4 E. Life, p. lxxix. 

The following are the letters : 

Two Letters framed, one as from Mr. Anthony Bacon to the Earl of Essex ; the 
other, as the Earl's answer. 

My singular good Lord, — This standing at a stay doth make me, in my love 
towards your lordship, jealous, lest you do somewhat, or omit somewhat, that 
amounteth to a new error ; for I suppose that of all former matters there is a full 
expiation ; wherein, for any thing which your lordship doth, I, for my part, 
(who am remote) cannot cast or devise wherein my error should be, except in 
one point, which I dare not censure nor dissuade ; which is, that as the prophet 
saith, in this affliction you look up " ad manum percutientem," and so make 
your peace with God. And yet I have heard it noted, that my lord of Leicester, 
who could never get to be taken for a saint, yet in the Queen's disfavour waxed 
seeming religious ; which may be thought by some, and used by others, as a 
case resembling yours, if men do not see, or will not see, the difference between 
your two dispositions. But, to be plain with your lordship, my fear rather is, 
because I hear how some of your good and wise friends, not unpractised in the 
court, and supposing themselves not to be unseen in that deep and unscrutable 
centre of the court, which is her majesty's mind, do not only toll the bell, but 
even ring out peals, as if your fortune were dead and buried, and as if there 

(a) A copy of this letter is supposed, erroneously perhaps, to have been sent 
by Bacon to Lord Salisbury, on the 20th of July. 



NOTE 4 E. 

were no-possibility of recovering her majesty's favour ; and as if the best of your 
condition were to live a private and retired life, out of want, out of peril, and 
out of manifest disgrace. And so, in this persuasion to your lordship-wards, to 
frame and accommodate your actions and mind to that end ; I fear (I say) that 
this untimely despair may in time bring forth a just despair, by causing your 
lordship to slacken and break off your wise, loyal, and seasonable endeavour 
and industry for redintegration to her majesty's favour, in comparison whereof 
all other circumstances are but as atoms, or rather as a vacuum, without any 
substance at all. Against this opinion, it may please your lordship to consider 
of these reasons, which I have collected ; and to make judgment of them, neither 
out of the melancholy of your present fortune, nor out of the infusion of that 
which cometh to you by other's relation, which is subject to much tincture, but 
" ex rebus ab ipsis," out of the nature of the persons and actions themselves, as 
the truest, and less deceiving ground of opinion. For, though I am so unfortu- 
nate as to be a stranger to her majesty's eye, much more to her nature and 
manners, yet by that which is extant I do manifestly discern that she hath that 
character of the divine nature and goodness, as " quos amavit, amavit usque ad 
finem ;" and where she hath a creature, she doth not deface nor defeat it : 
insomuch as, if I observe rightly, in those persons whom heretofore she hath 
honoured with her special favour, she hath covered and remitted, not only de- 
fections and ingratitudes in affection, but errors in state and service. 

2. If I can, scholar-like, spell and put together the parts of her majesty's 
proceedings now towards your lordship, I cannot but make this construction ; 
that her majesty, in her royal intention, never purposed to call your doings into 
public question, but only to have used a cloud without a shower, and censuring 
them by some restraint of liberty, and debarring from her presence. For both 
the handling the cause in the Star Chamber was enforced by the violence of 
libelling and rumours, wherein the Queen thought to have satisfied the world, 
and yet spared your appearance : and then after, when that means, which was 
intended for the quenching of malicious bruits, turned to kindle them, because 
it was said your lordship was condemned unheard, and your lordship's sister 
wrote that private letter, then her majesty saw plainly that these winds of ru- 
mours could not be commanded down, without a handling of the cause, by 
making you party, and admitting your defence. And to this purpose I do 
assure your lordship, that my brother Francis Bacon, who is too wise to be 
abused, though he be both reserved in all particulars more than is needful, yet 
in generality he hath ever constantly, and with asseveration affirmed to me, that 
both those days, that of the Star Chamber, and that at my Lord Keeper's, were 
won of the Queen, merely upon necessity and point of honour, against her own 
inclination. 

3. In the last proceeding, I note three points, which are directly significant, 
that her majesty did expressly forbear any point which was irrecuperable, or 
might make your lordship in any degree uncapable of the return of her favour, 
or might fix any character indelible of disgrace upon you : for she spared the 
public places, which spared ignominy ; she limited the charge precisely, not to 
touch disloyalty, and no record remaineth to memory of the charge or sentence. 

4. The very distinction which was made in the sentence of sequestration, from 
the places of service in state, and leaving to your lordship the place of master of 
the horse, doth in my understanding point at this, that her majesty meant to use 
your lordship's attendance in court, while the exercises of other places stood 
suspended. 

5. I have heard, and your lordship knoweth better, that now since you were 
in your own custody, her majesty, " in verbo regio," and by his mouth to whom 
she committeth her royal grants and decrees, hath assured your lordship she 
will forbid, and not suffer your ruin. 

6. As I have heard her majesty to be a prince of that magnanimity, that she 
will spare the service of the ablest subject or peer, where she shall be thought 
not to stand in need of it ; so she is of that policy, as she will not blaze the 
service of a meaner than your lordship, where it shall depend merely upon her 
choice and will. 



NOTE 4E. 

7. I held it for a principle that those diseases are hardest to cure, whereof the 
cause is obscure ; and those easiest, whereof the cause is manifest. Whereupon 
I conclude, that since it hath been your errors in your lowness towards her 
majesty which have prejudiced you, that your reforming and conformity will 
restore you, so as you may be " faber fortunae propriae." 

Lastly, considering your lordship is removed from dealing in causes of state, 
and left only to a place of attendance, methinks the ambition of any which can 
endure no partners in state matters may be so quenched, as they should not 
laboriously oppose themselves to your being in court. So as upon the whole 
matter, I cannot find, neither in her majesty's person, nor in your own person, 
nor in any third person, neither in former precedents, nor in your own case, any 
cause of peremptory despair. Neither do I speak this, but that if her majesty 
out of her resolution should design you to a private life, you should be as 
willing, upon the appointment, to go into the wilderness as into the land of 
promise ; only I wish that your lordship will not despair, but put trust (next to 
God) in her majesty's grace, and not be wanting to yourself. I know your 
lordship may justly interpret, that this which I persuade may have some refe- 
rence to my particular, because I may truly say, " tu stante non virebo," for I 
am withered in myself; but manebo, or tenebo, I should in some sort be, or 
hold out. But though your lordship's years and health may expect return 
of grace and fortune, yet your eclipse for a time is an " ultimum vale" to my 
fortune : and were it not that I desired and hope to see my brother established 
by her majesty's favour, as I think him well worthy for that he hath done and 
suffered, it were time I did take that course from which I dissuade your lord- 
ship. Now in the mean time, I cannot choose but perform those honest duties 
unto you, to whom I have been so deeply bound, &c. 

A Letter framed as from the Earl, in answer to the former letter. 

Mr. Bacon, — I thank you for your kind and careful letter. It persuades me 
that which I wish strongly, and hope for weakly ; that is, possibility of restitu- 
tion to her majesty's favour : but your arguments that would cherish hope turn 
to despair. You say the Queen never meant to call me to public censure, 
which sheweth her goodness ; but you see I passed under it, which sheweth 
other's power. I believe most steadfastly her majesty never intended to bring 
my cause to a sentence ; and I believe as verily, that since that sentence she 
meant to restore me to attend upon her person. But they that could use occa- 
sions, which was not in me to let, and amplify occasions, and practise upon 
occasions, to represent to her majesty a necessity to bring me to the one, can 
and will do the like to stop me from the other. You say, my errors were my 
prejudice, and therefore I can mend myself, and that if I ever recover the 
Queen, that I will never loose her again, will never suffer me to obtain interest 
in her favour : and you say the Queen never forsook utterly where she hath in- 
wardly favoured, but know not whether the hourglass of time hath altered her; 
but sure I am, the false glass of other's informations must alter her, when I want 
access to plead mine own cause. I know I ought doubly infinitely to be her 
majesty's, both " jure creationis," for I am her creature ; and jure redemp- 
tionis/' for I know she hath saved me from overthrow. But for her first love, 
and for her last protection, and all her great benefits, I can but pray for her 
majesty ; and my endeavour is now to make my prayers for her and myself 
better heard. For thanks be to God, that they which can make her majesty 
believe I counterfeit with her, cannot make God believe that I counterfeit with 
him ; and they that can let me from coming near to her, cannot let me from 
drawing nearer to him, as I hope I do daily. For your brother, I hold him an 
honest gentleman, and wish him all good, much rather for your sake ; yourself, 
I know, hath suffered more for me, and with me, than any friend that I have : 
but I can but lament freely, as you see I do, and advise you not to do that I 
do, which is, to despair. You know letters what hurt they have done me, and 
therefore make sure of this ; and yet I could not, as having no other pledge of 
my love, but communicate openly with you for the ease of my heart and yours. 

Your loving friend, R. Essex. 



NOTE 4 E. 

The Substance of a Letter I now wish your Lordship should write to her 
Majesty. 

That you desire her majesty to believe id, quod res ipsa loquitur, that it is not 
conscience to yourself of any advantage her majesty hath towards you, otherwise 
than the general and infinite advantage of a queen and a mistress ; nor any 
drift or device to win her majesty to any point or particular, that moveth you to 
send her these lines of your own mind : but first, and principally, gratitude ; 
next a natural desire of, you will not say, the tedious remembrance, for you 
can hold nothing tedious that hath been derived from her majesty, but the 
troubled and pensive remembrance of that which is past, of enjoying better 
times with her majesty, such as others have had, and that you have wanted. 
You cannot impute the difference to the continuance of time, which addeth 
nothing to her majesty but increase of virtue, but rather to your own misfortune 
or errors. Wherein, nevertheless, if it were only question of your own endu- 
rances, though any strength never so good may be oppressed, yet you think you 
should have suffocated them, as you had often done, to the impairing of your 
health, and weighing down of your mind. But that which indeed toucheth the 
quick is, that whereas you accounted it the choice fruit of yourself to be a con- 
tentment and entertainment to her majesty's mind, you found many times to the 
contrary, that you were rather a disquiet to her, and a distaste. 

Again, whereas in the course of her service, though you confess the weakness 
of your own judgment, yet true zeal, not misled with any mercenary nor glorious 
respect, made you light sometimes upon the best and soundest counsels ; you 
had reason to fear that the distaste particular against yourself made her majesty 
farther off from accepting any of them from such a hand. So as you seemed, to 
your deep discomfort, to trouble her majesty's mind, and to foil her business ; 
inconveniences, which, if you be minded as you ought, thankfulness should 
teach you to redeem, with stepping down, nay throwing yourself down, from 
your own fortune. In which intricate case, finding no end of this former course, 
and therefore desirous to find the beginning of a new, you have not whither to 
resort, but unto the oracle of her majesty's direction. For though the true intro- 
duction ad tempora meliora be by an amnestia of that which is past, except it be 
in the sense that the verse speaketh, Olim fuec meminisse juvabit, when tempests 
past are remembered in the calm ; and that you do not doubt of her majesty's 
goodness in pardoning and obliterating any of your errors and mistakings hereto- 
fore ; refreshing the memory and contemplations of your poor services, or any 
thing that hath been grateful to her majesty from you ; yea, and somewhat of 
your sufferings, so though that be, yet you may be to seek for the time to come. 
For as you have determined your hope in a good hour not willingly to offend 
her majesty, either in matter of court or state, but to depend absolutely upon 
her will and pleasure, so you do more doubt and mistrust your wit and insight 
in finding her majesty's mind, than your conformities and submission in obeying 
it ; the rather because you cannot but nourish a doubt in your breast, that her 
majesty, as princes' hearts are inscrutable, hath many times towards you aliud 
in ore, et aliud in corde. So that you, that take her secundum literam, go many 
times farther out of your way. 

Therefore your most humble suit to her majesty is, that she will vouchsafe 
you that approach to her heart and bosom, et ad scrinium pectoris, plainly, for 
as much as concerneth yourself, to open and expound her mind towards you, 
suffering you to see clear what may have bred any dislike in her majesty ; and 
in what points she would have you reform yourself, and how she would be 
served by you. Which done, you do assure her majesty, she shall be both at 
the beginning and the ending of all that you do, of that regard, as you may 
presume to impart to her majesty. 

And so that hoping that this may be an occasion of some farther serenity from 
her majesty towards you, you refer the rest to your actions, which may verify 
what you have written; as that you have written may interpret your actions, 
and the course you shall hereafter take. 

Indorsed by Mr. Francis Bacon — A Letter framed for 
my Lord of Essex to the Queen. 



NOTE 4 F. 



4 F. Life, p. xc. 

In the Harl. MS. No. 6854, fol. 188, entituled a description of the arraign- 
ment of Robert, Earl of Essex, and Henry, Earl of Southampton, the 19th day 
of February, 1600, is the following speech of Lord Bacon's : 

Then Mr. Bacon entered into a speeche much after this fashion, in speaking 
of this late and horrible rebellion which hath been in the eis and eares of all 
men. I shall save my self much labour in opening and enforceing the particular 
poinctes therof, insomuch as I spake not before cuntrey jury of ignoraunt 
people, but before a most honorable assemblie of the gravest and sagest peeres 
of the real me, whose wisdomes conceaves fair more then my tonge can utter ; 
yet with your gratious and honorable favours, I will presume, if not for infor- 
macion of your lordshipps, yet for dischardge of my duetie to saie this much, 
that there was never any traytor hard of soe shameleslie desperat that durste 
directlie attempt the seate of his liege soveraigne, but alwais covered his prac- 
tizes with some plausible pretence, for God hath ymprinted such a majestie in 
the face of princes, that noe subiect dare aproach the person of his soveraigne 
with any open traiterous yntent, and therefore they runne another side course 
oblique and altare, makeing shew to reforme some corrupcion in the state of 
religion, to reduce some auncyent libertie, or to remove some persons in highe 
places, yet still ayming at the subversion of the estate and destruction of their 
princes : so Cayne, the first murtherer, tooke upp an excuse, as shameing to out 
face that fact with impudency ; and soe this traytor Essex made his collour the 
scowring of some noble men and councellors from her majesties favour and the 
feare he stood in of his pretended enemies, lest they should murther hime. 
Therefore he said he was compelled to fly into the cittie for favour and defence, 
not much unlike Pisistrates, of whom yt is so auncyentlie written, how he gasht 
and wounded himself and in that sort rann cryeing into Athens that his lief was 
sought, and like to have been taken awaie, thinking to move the people to have 
pittie on him by such counterfett dainger and harme, wheras his ayme was to 
take the government of the cittie into his handes ; and after the forme therof, 
with like pretence of dainger and assaultes, the Erie of Essex entered the cittie 
of London throw the bowels therof, wheras he had noe such enemyes nor such 
daingers. But you, my lo. should know, that althoughe princes geve their 
subiectes causes of discontent, thoughe they take away the honors they heaped 
uppon them, thoughe they bringe them to a lower estate from whence they first 
raysed them, yet ought they not to be soe forgetfull of their alleageaunce, that 
therfore they should enter into any undutifull action, lesse upon rebellion, as 
they have donn. 

Here the Erie of Essex spake to answer Mr. Bacon. I muste call foorth 
Mr. Bacon against Mr. Bacon : you must then that Mr. Bacon hath written 
twoe severall lettres, the one artificialie framed in my name, haveing first 
framed one from me ; and Bacon, to provoke me, he layed doune the groundes 
of my discontement, and the resons I pretended against my enemys much like 
such a lettre as my sister Lady Rich wrott, and was therfore called before your 
lordshipps ; yf those resons were then iuste and true, not counterfett, how can 
yt be that now my pretences are false, and iniurious, flfor ther Mr. Bacon joyned 
with me in opinion and poincted out those to be my enemyes, and hold me in 
disgrace with her majesty, whom now he seemeth to cleere of any such mynde 
towards me, and therfore leave the truth of what I saie, and he opposeth, to 
your lordshipps indifferent consideracions. Then said Mr. Bacon, for those 
lettres, ray lord, if they were here they would not blushe for any thing con- 
teigned in them. I thinke soe, said the Erie of Essex ; for you have thrust 
them into many men's handes. Well, my lo. said Mr. Bacon, I have spent 
more houres in vaine, in studiing how to make you a good servaunt to her 
majestie and state then I have donn in any thing ells. Who, I ? Mr. Bacon, 
a good subject by your studye, said the erle with scornful countenance. 



NOTE 4 F. 

In the Harleian MS. No. 5202, entitled Proceedings against the Earl of 
Essex, 1600, the following speeches of Mr. F. Bacon occur : 

Then Mr. Baconne speake to this effecte. I expected not, quothe hee, that 
the matter of deffence should have bine excused. Therefore I must elatt my 
speache for that I intended, to rebell in deffence is matter not had of morther to 
defend is lawfull, but in this cause to doe all that was donne that day, and to 
goe about to blanche I cannot allowe, I speake not to simple men, I speake to 
them that cane draw proofFe out of the matter ; the thinges themselves is known 
by boockes, by experience, and by common lawe, that noe unlawful intend- 
mentes bent against the prynce, but that is an alteringe of government, as the 
phrease is in Scotland, they goe by noe meanes but by particulars enimies. My 
lord, I cannot assemble your proceedings to bee more aptly then that of Passis- 
sortus of Athens, who lanched himselfe, to the intent that by the sightes of his 
bleedinge woundes, the people might belive he was sett upon, your lordshipe 
gave out that your lyffe was sought by my Lo. Cobham and Sir W. Ralighe, 
and came in shuche a shewe of religion, that mens eies weare not able to 
behould the dept of it throughe shuche a mist. But your imprisoninge of the 
lordes of the councell, what refference had that face to my Lo. Cobham or the 
rest 1 you alledge the matter against to bee resoulved vpon a sudon, when you 
were 3 monthes in a deliberation. Oh, my lord, destren with your selfe, and 
stripe you of all excuses the persons whom you shot att, yf you righly vnder- 
stand are your best frendes. 

Then the E. of Essex interrupted him and sead that the speache of Mr. Ba- 
conne gaue him occation to speake for himselfe ; for, saithe hee, Mr. Baconne 
beinge a dailie courtier, and havinge free access to her majestie, vndertooke to 
goe to the Queene in my behalfe, and did write a letter most artificially, which 
was subscribed with my name, also another letter was drawne by him to ocation 
that letter with others that should come from his brother, Mr. Anthony Bacone, 
bothe which he shewed the Q. Gosnall and he brought me bothe the letters, 
and in my letter hee did plead for me feelingly against thous enimies, and 
poynted them out as particularly as was possible. 

Here Mr. Baconne answeared that thees degressions weare not frit, nether 
would be suffered, but that the honorable parties of assemblys weare great, yet 
hee spent more tyme to make him a servant for her majestie then ever he 
desarued, and for any thinge contayned in the letters, they would not blushe at 
the clearest light. 

But, saith the Earle, lett it be judged indifferently whether I have cause of 
greefe or not, when I was informed by thous of good credit, that a honorable 
gentelman and a wise councellor did with teare lament the courses that weare 
talkinge, besides of that I speake in London, that the infant was entyteled the 
succession. I had reason for it, for it was tould me that Mr. Secretary should 

say it to one of his fellow councelors, that the infantes tytle, &c. &c. 

***** 

Then Mr. Baconne speake to thes effecte. I doubte the veriatie of the 
matter and the degressions haue seuered the judgmentes of the lordes, and 
therefore I hould it necessary to trye the judges opinions ; that donne, hee pro- 
ceeded to this effecte : nowe putt the case the E. of Essex's intent were as you 
would have it beleued, to goe as a spectakell to her majestie, yet shall there 
petitions be armed petitions, which all was losse of libertie to the prynce, nether 
is it a nyce poynt of law, as my lord of South, would haue it, that condemes 
them of treason, even common sence to consult, to executt, to rune and gether 
a nomber in there dublettes and hosse, armed with weapons, what can bee the 
cause 1 Warned by my Lo. Kep. by a harowld, and yet presist, will any simple 
man take this lese then treason. 

The E. of Essex replyed, that if he had purposed any thinge against any 
other than honeste fore his privat enimies, hee would not have shewed with soe 
small a company. 

Mr. Baconne answeared, that not the company that you carried with you that 
you trusted in, but the assistment hoped for in the city. The Guies thrust 



NOTES 4 G 4 H. 

theme selves into Paris with only viij gent, and soe was aded, but thankes be to 
God, you fayled of it in London, but what followed ? the kinge was put to his 
pilgrimage habit, and in them devised to escape from the feare of the Guies ; 
you came with all hale to the citie, but thend was treason, as hath bene already 
proved. 

There is another copy of this speech of Lord Bacon's, nearly in the same 
words, in the Hail. MS. No. 6854, fol. 231. See also State Trials. 

4 G. Life, p. xciv. 

Birch, vol. ii. p. 505. But in the beginning of June the year following her 
majesty, in a conversation with Count de Beaumont, successor to Mons. de 
Boissise, as ambassador to her from France, after owning herself to be weary of 
life, with sighs and tears in her eyes, touched upon the subject of the earl's 
death, and said, that having been apprehensive, from the impetuosity of his 
temper and his ambition, that he would precipitate himself into destruction by 
some ill design, she had advised him above two years before to content himself 
with pleasing her on all occasions, and not to shew such an insolent contempt 
for her as he did ; but to take care not to touch her sceptre, lest she should be 
obliged to punish him according to the laws of England, and not according to 
her own, which he had found too mild and favourable for him to fear any suffer- 
ing from them ; but that her advices, however salutary and affectionate, could 
not prevent his ruin. 

The ambassador wrote again to his master on the 28th of March, N. S. that 
the Queen continued to grow worse, and appeared already in a manner insen- 
sible, not speaking sometimes for two or three hours, and within the last two 
days not for above four and twenty, holding her finger almost continually in her 
mouth, with her eyes open and fixed upon the ground, where she sat upon 
cushions without rising or resting herself, and was greatly emaciated by her long 
watching and fasting. 

In his next letter, of the 1st of April, N.S. he informs Mons. Villeroy, that the 
Queen was drawing to her end, and had been abandoned the day before by all 
her physicians, but was now forced in a manner into bed, after having sat ten 
days upon cushions, refusing to repose herself on it except for one hour, and that 
in her clothes. She seemed once to be so much better, calling for broth, that 
those about her entertained some hopes of her ; but soon after began to lose her 
speech, and from that time eat nothing, but lay on one side on the day of the 
date of this letter, without speaking or looking upon any person, though the day 
before she had directed some meditations to be read to her, and, among others, 
those of Mons. du Plessis. 

4 H. Life, p. xciv. 

Between the year 1605 and 1612, Bacon wrote an Essay " in Felicem 
Memoriam Elizabethce." This appears by a letter of Lord Bacon's to Sir George 
Carew, who was dead in 1613, as Mr. De Thou, in a letter to Mr. Camden, in 
1613, laments his death. 

The following is a copy, from the Cabala and Stephens's collection, of the 
letter : 

To Sir George Carew. 

My very good Lord, — Being asked the question by this bearer, an old servant 
of my brother Anthony Bacon's, whether I would command him any thing into 
France ; and being at better leisure than I would, in regard of sickness, I began 
to remember, that neither your business nor mine, (though great and continual) 
can be, upon an exact account, any just occasion, why so much good will as 
hath passed between us should be so much discontinued, as hath been. And 
therefore, because one must begin, I thought to provoke your remembrance of 
me by a letter ; and thinking to fit it with somewhat besides salutations, it came 

vol. xv. 10 



NOTE 4^.1. 

to my mind, that this last summer vacation, by occasion of a factious book, that 
endeavoured to verify, Misera F amino, (the addition of the Pope's bull), (a) upon 
Queen Elizabeth, I did write a few lines in her Memorial, which I thought you 
would be pleased to read, both for the argument, and because you were wont to 
bear affection to my pen, Vertim, tit aliud ex alio, if it came handsomely to 
pass, I would be glad the President de Thou, (who hath written an history, as 
you know, of that fame and diligence) saw it ; chiefly because I know not 
whether it may not serve him for some use in his story ; wherein I would be 
glad he did right to the truth, and to the memory of that lady, as I perceive by 
that he hath already written, he is well inclined to do. I would be glad also it 
were some occasion (such as absence may permit) of some acquaintance, or 
mutual notice between us. For though he hath many ways the precedence 
(chiefly in worth) yet this is common to us both, that we serve our sovereigns in 
places of law eminent ; and not ourselves only, but our fathers did so before us. 
And lastly, that both of us love learning and liberal sciences, which was ever a 
bond of friendship, in the greatest distance of places. But of this I make no 
further request than your occasions and respects (to me unknown) may further 
or limit ; my principal purpose being to salute you, and to send you this token. 
Whereunto I will add my very kind commendations to my lady, and so commit 
you both to God's holy protection. 

It seems also that he then had, if not the intention, the inclination to publish 
it ; the following passage is from the tract : — There are two fair issues of her 
happiness, born to her since her death, I conceive not less glorious and eminent 
than those she enjoyed alive. The one of her successor, the other of her 
memory. For she hath gotten such a successor, who although for his mascu- 
line virtues, and blessing of posterity, and addition of territories, he may be 
said to exceed her greatness and somewhat to obscure it ; notwithstanding he is 
most zealous of her name and glory ; and doth even give a perpetuity to her 
acts, considering both in the choice of the persons, and in the orders, and insti- 
tutions of the kingdom, he hath departed so little from her so as a son could 
hardly succeed a father, with less noise of innovation. As for her memory, it 
hath gotten such life in the mouths and hearts of men, as that envy being put 
out by her death, and her fame lighted, I cannot say whether the felicity of her 
life, or the felicity of her memory be the greater. For if, perhaps, there fly 
abroad any factious fames of her, raised either by discontented persons, or such 
as are averse in religion ; which notwithstanding dare now scarce shew their 
faces, and are every where cried down ; the same are neither true, neither can 
they be long lived. And for this cause especially have I made this collection, 
such as it is, touching her felicity, and the marks of God's favour towards her ; 
that no malicious person should dare to interpose a curse, where God hath 
given a blessing. 

" Restant felicitates posthumae duae, iis quae vivam comitabantur feri celsiores 
et augustiores : una successoris, altera memoriae. Nam successorem sortita est 
eum, qui licet et mascula virtu te et prole, et nova imperii accessione fastigium 
ejus excedat et obrumbret ; tamen et nomini et honoribus ejus faveat, et actis 
ejus quandam perpetuitatem donet : cum nee ex personarum delectu, nee ex 
institutorum ordine, quicquam magnopere mutaverit : adeo ut raro Alius parenti, 
tanto silentio, atquae tarn exigua mutatione et perturbatione successerit." 

In 1605, he published the Eulogium on Elizabeth, which is in page xcv, of 
the text of this life. 

About the year 1612, " The King," says Wilson, " cast his thoughts 
towards Peterborough, where his mother lay, whom he caused to be translated 
to a magnificent tomb, at Westminster. And (somewhat suitable to her mind 



(a) I have a tract in my possession, entitled, Felix Memoria Elizabeths An- 
glice. Regi7i& Auctore Francisco Bacono, Barone de Verulamio, Vice Comite 
S. Albani. Helmstadi, Typis Georg-Wolfgangi, Hammi. Acad. Typogr. Anv.o 
mdclxxxix. At the conclusion of this tract the Pope's bull is annexed. 



NOTE 4 II. 

when she was living) she had a translucent passage in the night, through the 
city of London, by multitudes of torches ; the tapers placed by the tomb and 
the altar, in the cathedral, smoking with them like an offertory, with all the 
ceremonies, and voices, their quires and copes could express, attended by many 
prelates and nobles, who paid this last tribute to her memory." 

In 1623 Lord Bacon published the treatise " De Augmentis." In this 
treatise the praise of Elizabeth, in the Advancement of Learning, is wholly 
omitted, and certainly not for its want of beauty; he also omits the passage, 
'* Then the reign of a queen matched with a foreigner : then of a queen that 
lived solitary and unmarried, and yet her government so masculine that it had 
greater impression and operation upon the states abroad than it any ways 
received from thence;" merely saying, " Rursus regnum faeminan solitariae et 
ccelibis." Whatever were the motives by which he was induced to suppress, 
for a time, the just praise of Elizabeth, he ordered the publication in a will, 
which he afterwards cancelled, but, in all probability, after some understanding 
with Dr. Rawley, that the publication should appear, as it did, soon after his 
death. This appears from Rawley's account, and from Archbishop Tennison's 
Baconiana. 

Archbishop Tennison published, in the Baconiana, this extract from his will, 
saying, " It is a transcript out of his lordship's will concerning his writings. 
There in particular manner, he commendeth to the press The Felicities of 
Queen Elizabeth." The words in the will are, " In particular I wish the elegie 
which I writ ' in felicem memoriam Elizabethan' may be published." 

The will to which the Archbishop and Dr. Rawley refer was a former will, 
and was altered. This appears by comparing the transcript by Archbishop 
Tennison with the published copy of his last : and that there may not be any 
mistake, I compared the printed copy of Lord Bacon's will, with the copy in 
Doctor's Commons, and found it correct, except with a few immaterial literal 
variations. 

The published, that is, the correct copy of Lord Bacon's will, does not con- 
tain this direction respecting the eulogy on Elizabeth. 

In the year 1651 a tract was published from which it appears that the essay 
" In felicem memoriam Elizabethan" had not been confined to the drawer of 
Dr. Rawley; it is entitled, In happy Memorie of Elizabeth, Queen of England, 
or a Collection of the Felicities of Queen Elizabeth. 

Of this tract Archbishop Tennison says, " The third is a memorial, intituled 
The Felicities of Queeu Elizabeth. This was written by his lordship in Latin 
only. A person of more good will than ability, translated it into English, and 
called it in the singular, Her Felicity. But we have also a version, much 
more accurate and judicious, performed by Doctor Rawley, who was pleased to 
take that labour upon him, because he understood the value his lordship put 
upon this work; for it was such, that I find this charge given concerning it, in 
his last will and testament. ' In particular I wish the elogie which I writ, in 
Felicem Memoriam Elizabeths, may be published.' " This version was pub- 
lished in 1657, many years after the death of James, in the first edition of the 
Resuscitatio, where in his address to the reader, he says, " I thought it fitting 
to intimate, that the discourse within contained, entituled A Collection of the 
Felicities of Queen Elizabeth, was written by his lordship in Latin only ; 
whereof, though his lordship had his particular ends then, yet in regard that I 
held it a duty, that her own nation, over which she so happily reigned for many 
years, should be acquainted and possessed with the virtues of that excellent 
queen, as well as foreign nations, I was induced, many years ago, to put the 
same into the English tongue ; not ad verbum, for that had been but flat and 
injudicious; but (as far as my slender ability could reach) according to the 
expressions, which I conceived his lordship would have rendered it in, if he 
had written the same in Euglish ; yet ever acknowledging that Zeuxis or 
Apelles' pencil, could not be attained but by Zeuxis or Apelles himself. This 
work, in the Latin, his lordship so much affected, that he had ordained, by his 
last will and testament, to have had it published many years since ; but that 
singular person entrusted therewith soon after deceased ; and therefore it must 



NOTE 4 H. 

now expect a time to come forth, amongst his lordship's other Latin works-." 
The translation is in the Resuscitatio. The Latin copy is in vol. xi. of this 
edition, p. 375. 

In the Harleian Miscellany in the British Museum, No. 6797, there is a 
folio containing, amongst various papers, a tract of praise of Queen Elizabeth ; 
it was published in 1734 by Stephens. It is in Mallet's folio edition of 1760, 
and is in vol. vii. page 147 of this edition. 



NOTE ZZ. 
afojspectittg tfie Charge of Ertforg. 

Solicitations by Suitors in England. 

1. Temp. Eliz. 

2. Temp. Jac. 

fl. Before time of Bacon. 
-| 2. During time of Bacon. 
(^3. After time of Bacon. 

3. Present times. 

ftemp. <Ety. 

Letters from Trinity College, Cambridge, to Lord Burleigh, respecting a Cause 
before him in which the College was interested, 1596. 

Our humbliest duties remembered. Your lordship's most honorable protec- 
tion to our poor colledge giveth us occasion at this present to crave some favour 
in a cause depending before your honorable lo. in the Exchequer chamber, into 
which court hath our tenant of the Rectorie of Swinsheade, within the countie 
of Lincoln been drawne for certain tythes to the Lo. Delaware's lands within 
that parish, pretended to belong to the free chapel of Barthrope, from no other 
evidence than a bare and torne inquisition lately discovered by one Jeff, and 
since sold for five pounds to John Knight, now plaintiff for the said tythes in 
question ; who being the Lo. Delaware's bayly in these parts hath procured, of 
late years, some broken payments of the said tythes, by threats, and promises 
to save the saide tenants there harmeles, and not otherwise. May it therefor 
please your most honorable lordship, for preservation of the colledge rights to 
examine the ualidity of the said inquisition, being no sufficient euidence, as we 
are advertised, against so auntient possession, and never taken by the oathes of 
any due inquest. Whereunto, nevertheless, if we must submit ourselves for the 
Queene, yet our humble request is, for avoyding of further inconvenience, 
wherein we stand more entangled by some indirect entring of a late decree in 
this cause, that the said decree so misentered at least may be explained and 
rectified by order of that honorable court, and that henceforth the plaintiff inter- 
meddle not anie with other tythes save come and haye, which in the said inqui- 
sition are only reserved. So being always bolde to troble your lo. in all our 
needs, we humblie comend your most honorable lordship to Almightie God. 
From Trinity College, in Cambridge. Januarii 27° 1596. 

Your Lo. most humblie to be always comaunded, 
Thomas Nevile, 
Jer. Radcliffe, John Overall, 

Gre. Milner, Hn. Grave, 

Thomas Harrison, Richa. Wright, 

William Hall, Thomas Furtho*. 

To the Right Honorable our very singular good 
Lo. the Lo. Burghley, Lo. High Treasurer of 
England. Lansd. MS. 



NOTE Z Z. 

The following is a letter written in the year 1597 from the University of 
Oxford to Lord Burleigh to induce him to interfere with the Lord Keeper res- 
pecting a pending cause in which the universities were interested. 

If, most honored Sir, the risk to which we are exposed were ours alone, yet 
from a persuasion of your perfect goodwill to us, and the belief of mutual friend- 
ship we should think ourselves right in invoking your support as readily as that 
of our own Chancellor. But since the well-being of the other university is 
assailed by the same danger which involves our interests, we hasten to borrow a 
share in that succour which your own Cambridge claims from you, that those 
who are united in one danger may conjoin their resources for the common 
cause. A deputation of our members has attended, by order of the court of 
Chancery, where, as they were bound to do, they pleaded the privilege of the 
university to the jurisdiction, and asked that by the favour of the court, they 
might be relieved from the necessity of leading evidence in any public trial, 
and permitted to settle the disputed points, after the antient manner, at home. 
Their plea was so little regarded that while the validity of the privilege was un- 
deniable, they made their reports to us that the matter must be tried in the 
usual course. The answer having been repeatedly returned our most honorable 
chancellor at our earnest desire dealt with the illustrious lord keeper to appoint 
a day in which he should be at liberty to take cognizance of our cause, and to 
decide upon it, thinking that whether the decision should accord with our 
wishes or disappoint them, it was still no small object to ascertain as soon as 
possible what we had to expect. Each ought to have that committed to him 
which he is best fitted to administer, and our distinguished chancellor has pro- 
mised, so far as he is concerned, that though prevented from interfering, by 
having in some measure a common interest in the cause, he will exert himself 
to bring the dispute to an equitable determination. But your lordship has a 
free access to solicit for your friends where the cause is not your own ; and we 
therefore the more earnestly conjure you to endeavour to conciliate in our favor 
that noble person, the Lord Keeper ; and, with your wonted and unequalled 
skill and influence, to obtain for us on the day whereon the honorable court 
shall grant us a hearing, a prompt and fair decision. Which trouble, if you 
consent to take upon you, you will render no less a favor to Cambridge than to 
us, and shall bind us as closely to you as are your friends its members. We 
wish you, most honorable Sir, all health, and that you may long live for your 
country and for us. Given the 12 February, 1597. 

For the Most Honorable Baron Burleigh, High 
Treasurer of England, Privy Counsellor to 
the Queen's Majesty : — These. 



Cemp. Jfac. before 13acmt &ms Chancellor. 

The influencing a judge out of court seems at that period scarcely to have 
been considered improper. A short time before Sir Francis was appointed Lord 
Keeper, Sir Edward Coke had incurred the royal displeasure. The King, 
anxious to convict one Peacham, but doubting the issue of a trial, ordered his 
attorney general to sound the judges upon it, and gather their opinions privately 
before he instituted a public prosecution. " I will not thus declare what may 
be my judgment by these auricular opinions of new and pernicious tendency, 
and not according to the customs of the realm," was the answer of Sir Edward 
Coke. 

A cause against the Bishop of Litchfield, respecting a vacant church held in 
commendam, Serjeant Chiborne, who was council against the bishop, in arguing 
the case had maintained several positions, reckoned prejudicial and derogatory 
to the King's supreme and imperial power, which was affirmed to be distinct 
from, and of a higher nature than his ordinary authority. Informed of this, 
James peremptorily commanded them to stay all proceedings till his return to 
London. They were then summoned before the council, and sharply repri- 



NOTE 7, Z. 

mantled for suffering the popular lawyers to question his prerogative, which was 
represented as sacred and transcendent, not to be handled or mentioned in 
vulgar argument. At last, raising his voice to frighten them into submission, 
he put this question to them severally : " If, at any time, in a case depending 
before the judges, he conceived it to concern him either in profit or power, and 
thereupon required to consult with them, and that they should stay proceedings 
in the mean time, whether they ought not to stay them accordingly 1" They 
all, the chief justice only excepted, acknowledged it their duty to do so. His 
answer was, " When such a case happens I will do that which will be fit for a 
judge to do." For this noble conduct, for this independent spirit, in resisting 
an attempt to violate the law, Sir Edward Coke was, as it is termed, disgraced, 
a censure which reflected more honour upon him than all his preferments. 
The following letters will exhibit the nature of the proceedings in these times. 

To the King, touching Peacham's business, &c. 

It may please your excellent Majesty, — I received this morning, by Mr. 
Murray, a message from your majesty, of some warrant and confidence that I 
should advertise your majesty of your business, wherein I had part : wherein I 
am first humbly to thank your majesty for your good acceptation of my endea- 
vours and service, which I am not able to furnish with any other quality, save 
faith and diligence. 

For Peacham's case, I have since my last letter, been with my lord Coke 
twice ; once before Mr. Secretary's going down to your majesty, and once 
since, which was yesterday : at the former of which times I delivered him 
Peacham's papers ; and at this latter the precedents, which I had with care 
gathered and selected ; for these degrees and order the business required. At 
the former I told him that he knew my errand, which stood upon two points ; 
the one to inform him of the particular case of Peacham's treasons, for I never 
give it other word to him ; the other, to receive his opinion to myself, and in 
secret, according to my commission from your majesty. At the former time he 
fell upon the same allegation which he had begun at the council table ; that 
judges were not to give opinion by fractions, but entirely according to the vote 
whereupon they should settle upon conference ; and that this auricular taking of 
opinions, single and apart, was new and dangerous ; and other words more 
vehement than I repeat. I replied in civil and plain terms, that I wished his 
lordship, in my love to him, to think better of it ; for that this, that his lordship 
was pleased to put into great words, seemed to me and my fellows, when we 
spake of it amongst ourselves, a reasonable and familiar matter, for a king to 
consult with his judges, either assembled or selected, or one by one. And then 
to give him a little outlet to save his first opinion, wherewith he is most com- 
monly in love, I added, that judges sometimes might make a suit to be spared 
for their opinion, till they had spoken with their brethren ; but if the king, upon 
his own princely judgment, for reason of estate, should think it fit to have it 
otherwise, and should so demand it, there was no declining ; nay, that it 
touched upon a violation of their oath, which was to counsel the king, without 
distinction, whether it were jointly or severally. Thereupon, I put him the case 
of the privy council, as if your majesty should be pleased to command any of 
them to deliver their opinion apart and in private ; whether it were a good 
answer to deny it, otherwise than if it were propounded at the table. To this 
he said, that the cases were not alike, because this concerned life. To which I 
replied, that questions of estate might concern thousands of lives, and many 
things more precious than the life of a particular ; as war, and peace, and the 
like. To conclude, his lordship tanquam exitum qiMErens, desired me for the 
time to leave with him the papers, without pressing him to consent to deliver a 
private opinion till he had perused them. I said I would. But he desired me 
to leave the precedents with him, that he might advise upon them. I told him, 
the rest of my fellows would dispatch their part, and I should be behind with 
mine ; which I persuaded myself your majesty would impute rather to his 
backwardness than my negligence. He said, as soon as T should understand 
that the rest were ready, he would not be long after with his opinion. 



NOTE Z Z. 

For Mr. St. John, your majesty knoweth, the day draweth on ; and my lord 
Chancellor's recovery, the season, and his age, promising not to be too hasty. 
I spake with him on Sunday, at what time I found him in bed, but his spirits 
strong, and not spent or wearied, and spake wholly of your business, leading me 
from one matter to another ; and wished and seemed to hope that he might 
attend the day for O. S. and it were, as he said, to be his last work to conclude 
his services, and express his affection towards your majesty. I presumed to say 
to him, that I knew your majesty would be exceeding desirous of his being 
present that day, so as that it might be without prejudice to his continuance ; 
but that otherwise your majesty esteemed a servant more than a service, espe- 
cially such a servant. Surely, in mine opinion, your majesty were better put 
off the day than want his presence, considering the cause of the putting off is 
so notorious ; and then the capital and the criminal may come together the 
next term. 

I have not been unprofitable in helping to discover and examine, within these 
few days, a late patent, by surreption obtained from your majesty, of the 
greatest forest in England, worth 30,000/. under colour of a defective title, for 
a matter of 400/. The person must be named, because the patent must be 
questioned. It is a great person, my lord of Shrewsbury; or rather, as I think, 
a greater than he, which is my lady of Shrewsbury. But I humbly pray your 
majesty to know this first from my lord treasurer, who methinks groweth even 
studious in your business. God preserve your majesty. Your Majesty's most 
humble and devoted subject and servant, Fr. Bacon. 

Jan. 31, 1614. 

The rather, in regard to Mr. Murray's absence, I humbly pray your majesty 
to have a little regard to this letter. 

A Letter to the King, touching Peacham's Cause, January 27, 1614. 

It may please your excellent Majesty, — This day in the afternoon was read 
your majesty's letters of direction touching Peacham, which, because it con- 
cerneth properly the duty of my place, I thought it fit for me to give your 
majesty both a speedy and private account thereof; that your majesty knowing 
things clearly how they pass, may have the true fruit of your own wisdom and 
clear seeing judgment in governing the business. First, for the regularity 
which your majesty (as a master in business of estate) doth prudently prescribe 
in examining, and taking examinations, I subscribe to it ; only I will say for 
myself, that I was not at this time the principal examiner. For the course 
your majesty directeth and commandeth, for the feeling of the judges of the 
King's Bench their several opinions, by distributing ourselves and enjoining 
secresy ; we did first find an encounter in the opinion of my lord Cooke, who 
seemed to affirm, that such particular, and, as he called it, auricular taking of 
opinions, was not according to the custom of this realm, and seemed to divine 
that his brethren would never do it. But when I replied, that it was our duty 
to pursue your majesty's directions ; and it were not amiss for his lordship to 
leave his brethren to their own answers, it was so concluded ; and his lord- 
ship did desire that I might confer with himself, and Mr. Serjeant Montague 
was named to speak with Justice Crooke, Mr. Serjeant Crew with Justice 
Houghton, and Mr. Solicitor with Justice Dodderidge. This done, I took my 
fellows aside, and advised that they should presently speak with the three 
judges, before I could speak with my lord Cooke, for doubt of infusion ; and 
that they should not in any case make any doubt to the judges, as if they mis- 
trusted they would not deliver any opinion apart, but speak resolutely to them, 
and only make their coming to be, to know what time they would appoint to be 
attended with the papers. This sorted not amiss ; for Mr. Solicitor came to me 
this evening and related to me, that he had found Judge Dodderidge very ready 
to give opinion in secret, and fell upon the same reason, which upon your 
majesty's first letter I had used to my lord Cooke at the council table, which 
was, that every judge was bound expressly by his oath to give your majesty 
counsel when he was called, and whether he should do it jointly or severally, 



NOTE Z Z. 

that rested in your majesty's good pleasure, as you would require it. And 
though the ordinary course was to assemble them, yet there might intervene 
cases wherein the other course was more convenient. The like answer made 
Justice Crook; Justice Houghton, who is a soft man, seemed desirous first to 
confer ; alleging that the other three judges had all served the crown before 
they were judges, but that he had not been much acquainted with business of 
this nature. We purpose therefore, forthwith, they shall be made acquainted 
with the papers ; and if that could be done as suddenly as this was, I should 
make small doubt of their opinions ; and howsoever, I hope, force of law and 
precedent will bind them to the truth : neither am I wholly out of hope, that 
my lord Cooke himself, when I have in some dark manner put him in doubt 
that he shall be left alone, will not continue singular. 

For Owen, I know not the reason why there should have been no mention 
made thereof in the last advertisement ; for I must say for myself, that I have 
lost no moment of time in it, as my lord of Canterbury can bear me witness. 
For having received from my lord an additional of great importance, which was, 
that Owen of his own accord, after examination, should compare the case of 
your majesty (if you were excommunicate) to the case of a prisoner condemned 
at the bar, which additional was subscribed by one witness, but yet I perceived 
it was spoken aloud, and in the hearing of others ; I presently sent down a 
copy thereof, which is now come up, attested with the hands of three more, 
lest there should have been any scruple of singularis testis ; so as for this case, 
I may say omnia parata ; and we expect but a direction from your majesty for 
the acquainting the judges severally, or the four judges of the King's Bench, as 
your majesty shall think good. 

I forget not, nor forslow not your majesty's commandment touching recu- 
sants, of which, when it is ripe, I will give your majesty a true account, and 
what is possible to be done, and where the impediment is, Mr. Secretary 
bringeth bonum voluntatem, but he is not versed much in these things, and 
sometimes urgeth the conclusion without the premises, and by haste hindereth. 
It is my lord treasurer and the Exchequer must help it, if it be holpen. I have 
heard more ways than one, of an offer of 20,000/. per annum for farming the 
penalties of recusants, not including any offence, capital or of premunire ; 
wherein I will presume to say that my poor endeavours, since I was by your 
great and sole grace your attorney, have been no small spurs to make them feel 
your laws, and seek this redemption, wherein I must also say, my lord Cooke 
hath done his part ; and I do assure your majesty I know, somewhat inwardly 
and groundedly, that by the courses we have taken, they conform daily and in 
great numbers ; and I would to God, it were as well a conversion as a confor- 
mity ; but if it should die by dispensation or dissimulation, then I fear that 
whereas your majesty hath now so many ill subjects, poor and detected, you 
shall then have them rich and dissembled. And therefore I hold this offer very 
considerable, of so great an increase of revenue, if it can pass the fiery trial of 
religion and honour, which I wish all projects may pass. 

Thus, inasmuch as I have made to your majesty somewhat a naked and 
particular account of business, I hope your majesty will use it accordingly. 
God preserve your majesty. 

Your Majesty's most humble and devoted subject and servant. 

To the King, concerning Owen's cause, &c. 
It may please your excellent Majesty, — Myself, with the rest of your counsel 
learned, conferred with my lord Coke, and the rest of the judges of the King's 
Bench only, being met at my lord's chamber, concerning the business of Owen. 
For although it be true, that your majesty in your letter did mention that the 
same course might be held in the taking of opinions apart in this, which was 
prescribed and used in Peacham's cause ; yet both my lords of the council, and 
we amongst ourselves, holding it, in a case so clear, not needful ; but rather 
that it would import a diffidence in us, and deprive us of the means to debate 
it with the judges, if cause were, more strongly, which is somewhat, we thought 
best rather to use this form. The judges desired us to leave the examinations 



NOTE Z Z. 

and papers with them Cor some little time, to consider, which is a thing they 
use, but I conceive, there will be no manner of question made of it. My Lord 
Chief Justice, to shew forwardness, as I interpret it, shewed us passages of 
Suarez and others, thereby to prove that though your majesty stood not excom- 
municate by particular sentence, yet by the general bulls of Cozna Domini, and 
others, you were upon the matter excommunicate ; and therefore that the treason 
was as de prcesenti. But I (that foresee that if that course should be held, when 
it cometh to a public day, to disseminate to the vulgar an opinion, that your 
majesty's case is all one, as if you were de facto particularly and expressly ex- 
communicate ; it would but increase the danger of your person with those that 
are desperate papists ; and that it is needless) commended my lord's diligence, 
but withal put it by, and fell upon the other course, which is the true way ; that 
is, that whosoever shall affirm, in diem, or sub conditione, that your majesty may 
be destroyed, is a traitor de presenti; for that he maketh you but tenant for 
life, at the will of another. And I put the Duke of Buckingham's case, who 
said that if the king caused him to be arrested of treason, he would stab him ; 
and the case of the impostress Elizabeth Barton, that said, that if king Henry 
the Eighth took not his wife again, Catherine dowager, he should be no longer 
king, and the like. 

It may be these particulars are not worth the relating ; but because I find 
nothing in the world so important to your service, as to have you throughly in- 
formed, the ability of your direction considered, it maketh me thus to do ; most 
humbly praying your majesty to admonish me if I be over troublesome. 

For Peacham, the rest of my fellows are ready to make their report to your 
majesty, at such time and in such manner as your majesty shall require it. 
Myself yesterday took my lord Coke aside, after the rest were gone, and told 
him all the rest were ready, and I was now to require his lordship's opinion, 
according to my commission. He said I should have it ; and repeated that 
twice or thrice, as thinking he had gone too far in that kind of negative to 
deliver any opinion apart before ; and said, he would tell it me within a very 
short time, though he were not that instant ready. I have tossed this business 
in omnes partes, whereof I will give your majesty knowledge when time serveth. 
God preserve your majesty. 

Your Majesty's most humble and devoted subject and servant, 
Feb. 11,1614. Fr. Bacon. 

Foster, on High Treason, when speaking of Peacham's case, says, " This 
case weigheth very little, and no great regard hath been paid to it ever since. 
And perhaps still less regard will be paid to it if it be considered that the king, 
who appeareth to have had the success of the prosecution much at heart, and 
took a part in it unbecoming the majesty of the crown, condescended to instruct 
his attorney general with regard to the proper measures to be taken in the exa- 
mination of the defendant ; that the attorney, at his majesty's command, sub- 
mitted to the drudgery of sounding the opinions of the judges upon the point of 
law before it was thought advisable to risk it at an open trial ; that the judges 
were to be sifted separately, and soon, before they could have an opportunity of 
conferring together : and that for this purpose four gentlemen in the profession 
in the service of the crown were immediately dispatched, one to each of the 
judges; Mr. Attorney himself undertaking to practice upon the chief justice, of 
whom some doubt was then entertained. Is it possible that a gentleman of 
Bacon's great talents could submit to a service so much below his rank and 
character ! But he did submit to it, and acquitted himself notably in it. 

" Others of his letters shew that the same kind of intercourse was kept up 
between the king and his attorney general with regard to many cases then de- 
pending in judgment, in which the king was pleased to take a part, or thought 
his prerogative concerned, particularly in the case of one Owen, executed for 
treasonable words ; in that of Mr. Oliver St. John, touching the benevolence in 
the dispute between the courts of King's Bench and Chancery in the case of 
praemunire, and in the proceedings against the Earl and Countess of Somerset." 

vol. xv. 11 



NOTE Z Z. 

" Of the fact of these applications having been made, no doubt can be enter- 
tained. The inferences to be deduced from the fact alone vary. 

It was the custom of the times, is one and a legitimate inference. 

Judge Foster, applying the sentiments of his own more intelligent times to 
this conduct, says, " Every reader will make his own reflections upon it. I 
have but one to make in this place. This method of forestalling the judgment 
of a court in a case of blood then depending, at a time too when the judges 
were removeable at the pleasure of the crown, doth no honour to the memory of 
the persons concerned in a transaction so insidious and unconstitutional, and at 
the same time weakeneth the authority of the judgment." 

And speaking of Bacon, he says, " Avarice, I think, was not his ruling pas- 
sion ; but whenever a false ambition, ever restless and craving, overheated in 
the pursuit of the honours which the crown alone can confer, happeneth to sti- 
mulate an heart otherwise formed for great and noble pursuits, it hath frequently 
betrayed it into measures full as mean as avarice itself could have suggested to 
the wretched animals who live and die under its dominion. For these passions, 
however they may seem to be at variance, have ordinarily produced the same 
effects. Both degrade the man ; both contract his views into the little point of 
self interest, and equally steel the heart against the rebukes of conscience, or 
the sense of true honour. Bacon having undertaken the service, informeth his 
majesty, in a letter addressed to him, that with regard to three of the judges, 
whom he nameth, he had small doubt of their concurrence. ' Neither,' saith 
he, ' am I wholly out of hope that my lord Coke himself, when I have, in some 
dark manner, put him in doubt that he shall be left alone, will not continue 
singular.' These are plain naked facts ; they need no comment. 

312Mjeit ISacon toaa Chancellor. 

It will be remembered that Sir Francis was appointed Lord Keeper on the 
3rd of March, and that he did not take his seat in the court until the 7th of May, 
but he had scarcely been entrusted with the seals when an application was 
made to him out of court by Buckingham on behalf of a suitor, in a letter which 
explains in a postscript that similar applications had been made to Sir Francis's 
predecessor ; and similar applications were, as a matter of course, made during 
the whole time he was entrusted with the great seal. This will appear from the 
following letters : 

To the Lord Keeper, (a) 

My honourable Lord, — Whereas the late Lord Chancellor thought it fit to 
dismiss out of the Chancery a cause touching Henry Skipwith to the common 
law, where he desireth it should be decided ; these are to entreat your lordship 
in the gentleman's favour, that if the adverse party shall attempt to bring it now 
back again into your lordship's court, you would not retain it there, but let it 
rest in the place where now it is, that without more vexation unto him in posting 
him from one to another, he may have a final hearing and determination thereof. 
And so I rest your Lordship's ever at command, G. Buckingham. 

My Lord, This is a business wherein I spake to my Lord Chancellor, where- 
upon he dismissed the suit. — Lincoln, the 4th of April, 1617. 

(a) This is the first of many letters, which the Marquis of Buckingham wrote 
to Lord Bacon, in favour of persons who had causes depending in, or likely to 
come into the court of Chancery ; and it is not improbable that such recommen- 
dations were considered in that age as less extraordinary and irregular than they 
would appear now. The marquis made the same kind of applications to Lord 
Bacon's successor, the Lord Keeper Williams, in whose life, by Bishop Hacket, 
part i. p. 107, we are informed, that " there was not a cause of moment, but, as 
soon as it came to publication, one of the parties brought letters from this mighty 
peer, and the lord keeper's patron." Birch. 



NOTE Z Z. 

To the Lord Keeper. 

My honourable Lord, — His majesty hath spent some time with Sir Lionel 
Cranfield about his own business, wherewith he acquainted his majesty. He 
hath had some conference with your lordship, upon whose report to his majesty 
of your zeal and care of his service, which his majesty accepteth very well at 
your hands, he hath commanded Sir L. Cranfield to attend your lordship, to 
signify his farther pleasure for the furtherance of his service ; unto whose rela- 
tion I refer you. His majesty's farther pleasure is, you acquaint no creature 
living with it, he having resolved to rely upon your care and trust only. Thus, 
wishing you all happiness, I rest your Lordship's faithful friend and servant, 
October 26, 1617. G.Buckingham. 

To the Lord Keeper. 

My honourable Lord, — I have thought good to renew my motion to your 
lordship, in the behalf of my Lord of Huntingdon, my Lord Stanhope, and Sir 
Thomas Gerard ; for that I am more particularly acquainted with their desires ; 
they only seeking the true advancement of the charitable uses, unto which the 
land, given by their grandfather, was intended ; which, as I am informed, was 
meant by way of a corporation, and by this means, that it might be settled upon 
the schoolmaster, usher, and poor, and the coheirs to be visitors. The tenants 
might be conscionably dealt withal ; and so it will be out of the power of any 
feoffees to abuse the trust ; which, it hath been lately proved, have been hitherto 
the hindrance of this good work. These coheirs desire only the honour of their 
ancestor's gift, and wish the money, misemployed and ordered to be paid into 
court by Sir John Harper, may rather be bestowed by your lordship's discretion 
for the augmentation of the foundation of their ancestors, than by the censure of 
any other. And so I rest your Lordship servant, G. Buckingham. 
Theobalds, Nov. 12.— Indorsed, 1617. 

To the Lord Keeper. 
My honourable Lord, — Though I had resolved to give your lordship no more 
trouble in matters of controversy depending before you, with what importance 
soever my letters had been, yet the respect I bear unto this gentleman hath so 
far forced my resolution, as to recommend unto your lordship the suit, which, I 
am informed by him, is to receive a hearing before you on Monday next, 
between Barnaby Leigh and Sir Edward Dyer, plaintiffs, and Sir Thomas 
Thynne, defendant ; wherein I desire your lordship's favour on the plaintiff's so 
far only as the justice of their cause shall require. And so I rest your Lord- 
ship's faithful servant, G. Buckingham. 
Newmarket, Nov. 15. — Indorsed, 1617. 

To the Lord Keeper. 
My honourable Lord, — The certificate being returned upon the commission 
touching Sir Richard Haughton's alum-mines, I have thought fit to desire your 
lordship's furtherance in the business, which his majesty, as your lordship will 
see by this letter, much affecteth as a bargain for his advantage, and for the 
present relief of Sir Richard Haughton. What favour your lordship shall do 
him therein, I will not fail to acknowledge, and will ever rest your Lordship's 
faithful servant, G. Buckingham. 

Indorsed, Received Nov. 16, 1617. 

To the Lord Keeper. 
My honourable Lord, — Understanding that Thomas Hukeley, a merchant of 
London, of whom I have heard a good report, intendeth to bring before your 
lordship in Chancery a cause depending between him, in the right of his wife, 
daughter of William Austen, and one John Horsmendon, who married another 
daughter of the said Austen ; I have thought fit to desire your lordship to give 
the said Thomas Hukeley a favourable hearing when his cause shall come before 



NOTE Z Z. 

you ; and so far to respect him for my sake, as your lordship shall see him 
grounded upon equity and reason, which is no more than I assure myself your 
lordship will grant readily, as it is desired by 

Your Lordship's faithful friend and servant G. Buckingham. 
Indorsed, Nov. 17, 1617. 

To the Lord Keeper. 

My honourable Lord, — His majssty hath been pleased to refer a petition of 
one Sir Thomas Blackstones to your lordship, who being brother-in-law to a 
gentleman whom I much respect, Sir Henry Constable, I have, at his request, 
yielded to recommend his business so far to your lordship's favour, as you shall 
find his case to deserve compassion, and may stand with the rules of equity. 
And so I rest your Lordship's faithful friend and servant, G. Buckingham. 
Newmarket, Dec. 4. — Indorsed, 1617. 

To the Lord Chancellor. 

My honourable good Lord, — Whereas in Mr. Hansbye's cause, (a) which 
formerly, by my means, both his majesty and myself recommended to your 
lordship's favour, your lordship thought good, upon a hearing thereof, to decree 
some part for the young gentleman, and to refer to some masters of the Chan- 
cery, for your farther satisfaction, the examination of witnesses to this point ; 
which seemed to your lordship to be the main thing your lordship doubted of, 
whether or no the leases, conveyed by old Hansbye to young Hansbye by deed, 
were to be liable to the legacies, which he gave by will ; and that now I am 
credibly informed, that it will appear upon their report, and by the depositions 
of witnesses, without all exception, that the said leases are no way liable to 
those legacies : these shall be earnestly to intreat your lordship, that upon con- 
sideration of the report of the masters, and depositions of the witnesses, you 
will, for my sake, shew as much favour and expedition to young Mr. Hansbye 
in this cause, as the justness thereof will permit. And I shall receive it at 
your lordship's hands as a particular favour. So I take my leave of your lord- 
ship, and rest your Lordship's faithful friend and servant, G. Buckingham. 
Greenwich, the 12th of June, 1618. 

To the Lord Chancellor. 

My honourable Lord, — Lest my often writing may make your lordship con- 
ceive that this letter hath been drawn from you by importunity, I have thought 
fit, for preventing of any such conceit, to let your lordship know, that Sir John 
Wentworth, whose business I now recommend, is a gentleman whom I esteem 
in more than an ordinary degree. And therefore I desire your lordship to shew 
him what favour you can for my sake in his suit, which his majesty hath referred 
to your lordship ; which I will acknowledge as a courtesy unto me, and rest 
Your Lordship's faithful friend and servant, G. Buckingham. 
Newmarket, Jan. 26, 1618. 

To the Lord Chancellor. 

My honorable Lord, — I being desired by a special friend of mine to recom- 
mend unto your lordship's favour the case of this petitioner, have thought fit to 
desire you, for my sake, to shew him all the favour you may in this his desire, 

(a) This seems to be one of the causes, on account of which Lord Bacon was 
afterwards accused by the House of Commons ; in answer to whose charge he 
admits, that in the cause of Sir Ralph Hansbye there being two decrees, one 
for the inheritance, and the other for goods and chattels ; some time after the 
first decree, and before the second, there was 500/. delivered to him by Mr. 
Tobie Matthew ; nor could his lordship deny, that this was upon the matter 
pendente lite. ' v 



NOTE Z Z. 

as you shall find it in reason to deserve ; which I shall take as a courtesy from 
your lordship, and ever rest your Lordship's faithful friend and servant, 

G. Buckingham. 

I thank your lordship for your favour to Sir John Wentworth, in the dispatch 
of his business. 

Newmarket, March 15, 1618. 

To the Lord Chancellor. 
My honourable Lord, — Understanding that there is a suit depending before 
your lordship between Sir Rowland Cotton, plaintiff, and Sir John Gawen, 
defendant, which is shortly to come to a hearing ; and having been likewise 
informed that Sir Rowland Cotton hath undertaken it in hehalf of certain poor 
people ; which charitable endeavour of his, I assure myself, will find so good 
acceptation with your lordship, that there shall be no other use of recommenda- 
tion ; yet at the earnest request of some friends of mine, I have thought fit to 
write to your lordship in his behalf, desiring you to shew him what favour you 
lawfully may, and the cause may bear, in the speedy dispatch of his business ; 
which I shall be ever ready to acknowledge, and rest your Lordship's most 
devoted to serve you, G. Buckingham. 

Whitehall, April 20, 1618. 

To the Lord Chancellor. 
My honorable Lord, — Understanding that the cause depending in the Chan- 
cery between the Lady Vernon and the officers of his majesty's household is 
now ready for a decree, though I doubt not but as his majesty hath been satis- 
fied of the equity of the cause on his officers' behalf, who have undergone the 
business by his majesty's command, your lordship will also find their cause 
worthy of your favour, yet I have thought fit once again to recommend it to 
your lordship, desiring you to give them a speedy end of it, that both his majesty 
may be freed from farther importunity, and they from the charge and trouble of 
following it ; which I will be ever ready to acknowledge as a favour done unto 
myself, and always rest your Lordship's faithful friend and servant, 

Greenwich, June 15, 1618. G. Buckingham. 

To the Lord Chancellor. 

My honourable Lord, — I wrote unto your lordship lately in the behalf of Sir 
Rowland Cotton, that then had a suit in dependance before your lordship and 
the rest of my lords in the Star-Chamber. The cause, I understand, hath gone 
contrary to his expectation ; yet he acknowledges himself much bound to your 
lordship for the noble and patient hearing he did then receive ; and he rests 
satisfied, and I much beholden to your lordship, for any favour it pleased your 
lordship to afford him for my cause. It now rests only in your lordship's power 
for the assessing of costs ; which, because, I am certainly informed, Sir Row- 
land Cotton had just cause of complaint, I hope your lordship will not give any 
against him. And I do the rather move your lordship to respect him in it, be- 
cause it concerns him in his reputation, which I know he tenders, and not the 
money, which might be imposed upon him ; which can be but a trifle. Thus 
presuming of your lordship's favour herein, which I shall be ready ever to 
account to your lordship for, I rest your Lordship's most devoted to serve you, 
June 19, 1618. G. Buckingham. 

To the Lord Chancellor. 

My honourable Lord, — I have been desired by some friends of mine, in the 
behalf of Sir Francis Englefyld, to recommend his cause so far unto your lord- 
ship, that a peremptory day being given by your lordship's order for the perfect- 
ing of his account, and for the assignment of the trust, your lordship would take 
such course therein, that the gentleman's estate may be redeemed from farther 
trouble, and secured from all danger, by engaging those to whom the trust is 



NOTE Z Z. 

now transferred by your lordship's order, to the performance of that whereunto 
he was tied. And so not doubting but your lordship will do him what lawful 
favour you may herein, I rest your Lordship's faithful friend and servant, 

Indorsed — Received Oct. 14, 1618. G. Buckingham. 

To the Lord Chancellor. 
My honourable Lord, — Whereas there is a cause depending in the court of 
Chancery between one Mr. Francis Foliambe and Francis Hornsby, the which 
already hath received a decree, and is now to have another hearing before your- 
self ; I have thought fit to desire you to shew so much favour therein, seeing it 
concerns the gentleman's whole estate, as to make a full arbitration and final 
end, either by taking the pains in ending it yourself, or preferring it to some 
other, whom your lordship shall think fit : which I shall acknowledge as a 
courtesy from your lordship, and ever rest 

Your Lordship's faithful friend and servant, G. Buckingham. 
Hinchingbroke, Oct. 22, 1618. 

To the Lord Chancellor. 
My honourable Lord, — Having formerly moved your lordship in the business 
of this bearer, Mr. Wyche, of whom, as 1 understand, your lordship hath had a 
special care to do him favour, according to the equity of his cause ; now seeing, 
that the cause is shortly to be heard, I have thought fit to continue my recom- 
mendation of the business unto you, desiring your lordship to shew what favour 
you lawfully may unto Mr. Wyche, according as the justness of the cause shall 
require ; which I will acknowledge as a courtesy from your lordship, and ever 
rest your Lordship's faithful friend and servant, G. Buckingham. 

Newmarket, Nov. 18, 1618. 

To the Lord Chancellor. 
My honourable Lord, — I having understood by Dr. Steward, that your lord- 
ship hath made a decree against him in the Chancery, which he thinks very hard 
for him to perform ; although I know it is unusual to your lordship to make 
any alterations, when things are so far past ; yet in regard I owe him a good 
turn, which I know not how to perform but this way, I desire your lordship, if 
there be any place left for mitigation, your lordship would shew him what favour 
you may, for my sake, in his desires, which I shall be ready to acknowledge as 
a great courtesy done unto myself, and will ever rest 

Your Lordship's faithful friend and servant, G. Buckingham. 
Newmarket, Dec. 2, 1618. 

To the Lord Chancellor. 
My honourable Lord, — I have written a letter unto your lordship, which will 
be delivered unto you in behalf of Dr. Steward ; and besides, have thought fit 
to use all freedom with you in that, as in other things ; and therefore have 
thought fit to tell you, that he being a man of very good reputation, and a stout 
man, that will not yield to any thing, wherein he conceiveth any hard course 
against him, I should be sorry he should make any complaint against you. And 
therefore, if you can advise of any course, how you may be eased of that 
burden, and freed from his complaint, without shew of any fear of him, or any 
thing he can say, I will be ready to join with you for the accomplishment 
thereof: and so desiring you to excuse the long stay of your man, I rest 

Your Lordship's faithful friend and servant, G. Buckingham. 
From Newmarket, Dec. 3, 1618. 

To the Lord Chancellor. 
My honourable Lord, — I thank your lordship for the favour, which I under- 
stand Sir Francis Englefyld hath received from your lordship upon my last 
letter, whereunto I desire your lordship to add this one favour more (which is 
the same that I understand your lordship granted him at Christmas last) to give 
him liberty for the space of a fortnight, to follow his business in his own person ; 



NOTE Z Z. 

whereby he may bring it to the more speedy end, putting in security according 
to the ordinary course, to render himself prisoner again as soon as that time is 
expired ; which is all that I desire for him, and in which I will acknowledge 
your lordship's favour towards him, and ever rest 

Your Lordship's faithful friend and servant, G. Buckingham. 
Newmarket, Dec. 10, 1618. 

To the Lord Chancellor. 
My honourable Lord, — His majesty, upon a petition delivered by Mr. Thomas 
Digby, wherein he complaineth of great wrongs done unto him, hath been 
pleased, for his more speedy relief and redress, if it prove as he allegeth, to 
refer the consideration thereof unto your lordship. And because he is a gentle- 
man whom I have long known and loved, I could not but add my desire to 
your lordship, that, if you find he hath been wronged, you would do him so 
much favour, as to give him such remedy as the equity of his case may require. 
For which I will ever rest your Lordship's faithful friend and servant, 

Royston, Oct. 8, 1619. G. Buckingham. 

To the Marquis of Buckingham. 
My very good Lord, — This morning the duke came to me, and told me the 
king's cause was yesterday left fair ; and if ever there were a time for my lord of 
Suffolk's submission, it was now ; and that if my lord of Suffolk should come 
into the court and openly acknowledge his delinquency, he thought it was a 
thing considerable. My answer was, I would not meddle in it ; and, if I did, 
it must be to dissuade any such course ; for that all would be but a play upon 
the stage, if justice went not on in the right course. This I thought it my duty 
to let the king know by your lordship. 

I cannot express the care I have had of this cause in a number of circum- 
stances and discretions, which, though they may seem but small matters, yet 
they do the business, and guide it right. God ever keep your lordship. 

Your Lordship's most obliged friend and faithful servant, 
Oct. 21, 1619. Fr. Vertjlam, Cane. 

To the Lord Chancellor. 
My honourable Lord, — This^bearer, a Frenchman belonging to the ambas- 
sador, having put an English an in suit for some matters between them, is 
much hindered and molested by often removing of the cause from one court to 
another. Your lordship knows that the French are not acquainted with our 
manner of proceedings in the law, and must therefore be ignorant of the remedy 
in such a case. His course was to his majesty ; but I thought it more proper 
that your lordship would be pleased to hear and understand this case from him- 
self, and then to advise and take order for his relief, as your lordship in your 
wisdom shall think fit. So commending him to your honourable favour, I rest 
Your Lordship's faithful friend and servant, G. Buckingham. 
Royston, Oct. 27, 1619. 

Your lordship shall do well to be informed of every particular, because his 
majesty will have account of it at his coming. 

To the Lord Chancellor. 

My honourable Lord, — His majesty hath been pleased, out of his gracious 
care of Sir Robert Killigrew, to refer a suit of his, for certain concealed lands, 
to your lordship and the rest of the commissioners for the Treasury ; the like 
whereof hath been heretofore granted to many others. My desire to your lord- 
ship is, that he being a gentleman, whom I love and wish very well unto, your 
lordship would shew him, for my sake, all the favour you can, in furthering his 
suit. Wherein your lordship shall do me a courtesy, for which I will ever rest 
Your Lordship's faithful friend and servant, G. Buckingham. 
Royston, Dec. 15, 1619. 



NOTE Z Z. 

To the Lord Chancellor. 
My honourable Lord, — I have been intreated to recommend unto your lord- 
ship the distressed case of the Lady Martin, widow of Sir Richard Martin, 
deceased, who hath a cause to be heard before your lordship in the Chancery, 
at your first sitting in the next term, between her and one Archer, and others, 
upon an ancient statute, due long since unto her husband; which cause, I am 
informed, hath received three verdicts for her in the common law, a decree in 
the Exchequer Chamber, and a dismission before your lordship ; which I was 
the more willing to do, because 1 have seen a letter of his majesty to the said 
Sir Richard Martin, acknowledging the good service that he did him in this 
kingdom, at the time of his majesty's being in Scotland. And therefore I desire 
your lordship, that you would give her a full and fair hearing of her cause, and 
a speedy dispatch thereof, her poverty being such, that having nothing to live 
on but her husband's debts, if her suit long depend, she shall be inforced to 
lose her cause for want of means to follow it ; wherein I will acknowledge your 
lordship's favour, and rest your Lordship's faithful friend and servant, 

Whitehall, Jan. 13, 1620. G. Buckingham. 

To the Lord Chancellor. 

My honourable Lord, — Understanding that there hath been a long and 
tedious suit depending in the Chancery between Robert D'Oyley and his wife, 
plaintiffs, and Leonard Lovace, defendant ; which cause hath been heretofore 
ended by award, but is now revived again, and was, in Michaelmas term last, 
fully heard before your lordship ; at which hearing your lordship did not give 
your opinion thereof, but were pleased to defer it, until breviats were delivered 
on both sides ; which, as I am informed, hath been done accordingly : now my 
desire unto your lordship is, that you will be pleased to take some time, as 
speedily as your lordship may, to give your opinion thereof, and so make a final 
end, as your lordship shall find the same in equity to deserve. For which I 
will ever rest your Lordship's faithful friend and servant, G. Buckingham. 
Windsor, May 18, 1620. 

To the Lord Chancellor. 

My honourable Lord, — His majesty having made a reference of business to 
your lordship, concerning Sir Robert Douglas and Mr. David Ramsey, two of 
his highness's servants, whom he loveth, and whom I wish very well unto ; I 
have thought fit to desire you to shew them all the favour your lordship may 
therein ; which I will acknowledge, and ever rest 

Your Lordship's faithful friend and servaat, G. Buckingham. 

The reference comes in the name of my brother Christopher, because they 
thought it would succeed the better ; but the prince wisheth well to it. 
Farnham, the last of August, 1620. 

Indorsed — Touching the business of wills. 

To the Lord Chancellor. 

My honourable Lord, — There is a business in your lordship's hands, with 
which Sir Robert Lloyd did acquaint your lordship ; whereof the prince hath 
demanded of me what account is given. And because I cannot inform his 
highness of any proceeding therein, I desire your lordship to use all expedition 
that may be in making your answer to me, that I may give his highness some 
satisfaction, who is very desirous thereof. And so I rest 

Your Lordship's faithful friend and servant, G. Buckingham. 
Royston, Oct. 14, 1620. 

Indorsed — Touching the register of wills. 



NOTE 2 Z. 

To the Lord Chancellor. 

My honourable Lord, — I desire your lordship to continue your favour to 
Sir Thomas Gerrard in the business concerning him, wherein I signified his 
majesty's pleasure to your lordship. And one favour more I am to intreat of 
your lordship in his behalf, that you will be pleased to speak to one of the 
assistants of the Chancellor of the Duchy, in whose court he hath a cause 
depending, as he will more fully inform your lordship himself, to see that he 
may have a fair proceeding according to justice ; for which I will ever rest 

Your Lordship's faithful friend and servant, G. Buckingham. 

Royston, Oct. 15, 1620. 

Letters from other persons than Buckingham respecting Suitors of the Court 
of Chancery. 

From the University of Cambridge.* 

Right Honourable, — The confidence which the townsmen have, in obtaining 
their charter and petition, makes us bold and importunate suitors to your honour, 
by whose favour with his majesty and protection, we again humbly intreat the 
University and ourselves may be freed from that danger which by them is 
intended to us. By their own reports, it is a matter of honour and advantage 
for which they sue : when they were at the lowest, and in their meanest for- 
tunes, they ever shewed themselves unkind neighbours to us ; and their suits 
with us, within these few years, have caused us to spend our common treasury, 
and trouble our best friends, and therefore we cannot expect peace amongst 
them, when their thoughts and wills shall be winged and strengthened by that 
power and authority which the very bare title of a city will give unto them. 
Since our late letter to the right honourable Lord Chancellor, your honour, and 
his majesty's Attorney General, we (being better informed of the course they 
take, and of their confidence to prevail at the end of the next term) have sent 
letters from the body of the University to the King's majesty, the Lord Chan- 
cellor, and others, our honourable friends ; shewing them of our fear, and their 
purpose, and to entreat them to join with your honour and us, to his majesty, to 
stay their suit before we be driven to further charge or trouble, in entertaining 
counsel, or soliciting our friends. Thus humbly entreating your honour to 
pardon our importunity, and often soliciting your lordship in this business, 
with our earnest prayers to the Almighty for your honour's long life and happy 
estate, we end this. Your Honour's in all duty to be commanded. 
February, 1616. 

Sir Francis Englefyld t to the Lord Keeper. 
Right Honourable, — Give me leave, I beseech your lordship, for want of 
other means, by this paper to let your lordship understand, that notwithstanding 

* Sloan MS. 3562. art. 41. 

t This gentleman was very unfortunate in his behaviour with regard to those 
who bad the great seal; far in Hilary term of the year 1623-4 he was fined 
three thousand pounds by the Star Chamber, for casting an imputation of 
bribery on the Lord Keeper Williams, Bishop of Lincoln. MS. letter of Mr. 
Chamberlain to Sir Dudley Carleton, dated at London, 1623-4. Sir Francis 
had been committed to the Fleet for a contempt of a decree in Chancery ; upon 
which he was charged, by Sir John Bennet, with having said before sufficient 
witness, " that he could prove this holy bishop judge had been bribed by some 
that fared well in their causes." A few days after the sentence in the Star 
Chamber, the Lord Keeper sent for Sir Francis, and told him he would refute 
his foul aspersions, and prove upon him that he scorned the pelf of the world, 
or to exact, or make lucre of any man ; and that, for his own part, he forgave 
him every penny of his fine, and would crave the same mercy towards him from 
the king. — Bishop Hacket's Life of Archbishop Williams, Part T. p. 83, 84. 

VOL. XV. 12 



NOTE Z Z. 

I rest in no contempt, nor have to my knowledge broken any order made by 
your lordship concerning the trust, either for the payment of money, or assign- 
ment of land ; yet, by reason of my close imprisonment, and the unusual 
carriage of this cause against me, 1 can get no council, who will in open court 
deliver my case unto your lordship. I must therefore humbly leave unto your 
lordship's wisdom, how far your lordship will, upon my adversary's fraudulent 
bill exhibited by the wife without her husband's privity, extend the most 
powerful arm of your authority against me, who desire nothing but the honest 
performance of a trust, which I know not how to leave, if I would. So, nothing 
doubting but your lordship will do what appertaineth to justice, and the eminent 
place of equity your lordship holdeth, I must, since I cannot understand from 
your lordship the cause of my late close restraint, rest, during your lordship's 
pleasure, your lordship's close prisoner in the Fleet, 

October 28, 1617. Fr. Englefyld. 

To the Lord Chancellor. 

Most honourable Lord, — Herewithal I presumed to send a note inclosed, 
both of my business in Chancery, and with my Lord Koos, which it pleased 
your lordship to demand of me, that so you might better do me good in utroque 
genere. It may please your lordship, after having perused it, to commend it 
over to the care of Mr. Meautys for better custody. 

At my parting last from your lordship, the grief I had to leave your lordship's 
presence, though but for a little time, was such, as that being accompanied 
with some small corporal indisposition that I was in, made me forgetful to say 
that, which now for his majesty's service I thought myself bound not to silence. 
I was credibly informed and assured, when the Spanish ambassador went away, 
that howsoever Ralegh and the prentices should fall out to be proceeded withal, 
no more instances would be made hereafter on the part of Spain for justice to 
be done ever in these particulars : but that if slackness were used here, they 
would be laid up in the deck, and would serve for materials (this was the very 
word) of future and final discontentments. Now as the humour and design of 
some may carry them towards troubling of the waters, so I know your lordship's 
both nature and great place require an appeasing them at your hands. And I 
have not presumed to say this little out of any mind at all, that I may have, to 
meddle with matters so far above me, but out of a thought I had, that I was 
tied in duty to lay thus much under your lordship's eye ; because I know and 
consider of whom I heard that speech, and with how grave circumstances it was 
delivered. 

I beseech Jesus to give continuance and increase to your lordship's happi- 
ness ; and that, if it may stand with his will, myself may one day have the 
honour of casting some small mite into that rich treasury. So I humbly do 
your lordship reverence, and continue the most obliged of your Lordship's many 
faithful servants, Tobie Matthew. 

Nottingham, Aug. 21, 1618. 

gtfter tfje time of Hortr Bacon. 

Bishop Williams. 

In part of his life Bishop Hackett says, " And within the compass of this 
time he says he dreamt the Lord Keeper was dead, and that he went by and 
saw his grave a making. And how doth he expound this vision which he saw 
in his sleep, but that he was dead in my Lord Buckingham's affections ? Some 
are like to ask what it was that did the ill office to shake the steadfastness of 
their friendship 1 That will break out hereafter. But the quarrel began that 
some decrees had been made in Chancery for whose better speed my lord 
marquess had undertaken. An undertaker he was without confinement of im- 
portunity. There was not a cause of moment but as soon as it came to publi- 
cation one of the parties brought letters from this mighty peer and the lord 
keeper's patron. For the lord marquess was of a kind nature, in courtesy more 



^OTE Z Z. 

luxuriant than was fit in his place, not willing to deny a suit but prone to 
gratify all strangers, chiefly if any of his kindred brought them in his hand, 
and was far more apt to believe them that asked him a favour, than those that 
would persuade him it was not to be granted. These that haunted him without 
shame, to have their suits recommended to great officers, made him quickly 
weary of his faithful ministers that could not justly satisfy him. I had men- 
tioned none but that I am beholden to the cabal tf fall upon one, the worst of 
twenty. Sir John Michel, of whose unreasonableness the Lord Keeper writes 
thus : ' God is my witness I have never denied either justice or favour (which 
was to be justified) to this man, or any other that had the least relation to your 
good and most noble mother. And I hope your lordship is persuaded thereof.' " 

The Lord Keeper to the Duke about the Lord Treasurer. 

My most noble Lord,— That I neither wrote unto your lordship, nor waited 
upon your lordship sithence my intolerable scandalizing by the Lord Treasurer, 
this is the true and only cause : I was so moved to have all my diligent service, 
pains, and unspotted justice thus rewarded by a lord, who is reputed wise, that 
I have neither slept, read, written, or eaten any thing since that time ; until the 
last night, that the ladies sent for me (I believe of purpose) to Wallingford 
House, and put me out of my humour. I have lost the love and affection of my 
men, by seizing upon their papers, perusing all their answers to petitions, casting 
up their monies, received by way of fees (even to half-crowns and two shillings) 
and finding them all to be poor honest gentlemen, that have maintained them- 
selves in my service by the greatness of my pains, and not the greatness of their 
fees. They are, most of them, landed men, that do not serve me for gain, but 
for experience and reputation; and desire to be brought to the test, to show 
their several books, and to be confronted by any one man, with whom they 
contracted, or from whom they demanded any fee at all ; the greatest sum in 
their books is five pounds, and those very few, and sent unto them from earls 
and barons ; all the rest are, some twenty shillings, ten shillings, five shillings, 
two shillings and sixpence, and two shillings. And this is the oppression in my 
house, that the kingdom (of the common lawyers, peradventure, who have lost, 
I confess, hereby twenty thousand pounds at the least, saved in the purses of 
the subjects) doth now groan under. 

jNow I humbly beseech your lordship to peruse this paper here inclosed, and 
the issue I do join with the Lord Treasurer; and to acquaint (at the least) the 
king and the prince, how unworthily I am used by this lord ; who (in my soul 
and conscience I believe it) either invents these things out of his own head, 
and ignorance of this court, or hath taken them up from base, unworthy, and 
most unexperienced people. Lastly, because no act of mine (who am so much 
indebted for all my frugality) could in the thoughts of a devil incarnate, breed 
any suspicion that I gained by this office, excepting the purchase of my grand- 
father's lands, whereunto my Lord Chamberlain's nobleness, and your lordship's 
encouragement, gave the invitation, I do make your lordship (as your lordship 
hath been often pleased to honor me) my faithful confessor in that business, 
and do send your lordship a note inclosed, what money I paid, what I borrowed, 
and what is still owingr for the purchase. 

I beseech your lordship to cast your eye upon the paper, and lay it aside, that 
it be not lost. And having now poured out my soul and sorrow into your lord- 
ship's breast, I find my heart much eased, and humbly beseech your lordship 
to compassionate the wrongs of your most humble and honest servant, 

Sept. 9, 1622. J. L. C. S. 

The Lord Keeper to the Duke, concerning Sir John Michel. 

My most noble Lord, — In the cause of Sir John Michel, which hath so often 
wearied this court, vexed my lady your mother, and now flieth (as it seemeth) 
unto your lordship, I have made an order the last day of the term, assisted by 
the Master of the Rolls and Mr. Baron Bromley in the presence, and with the 
full consent of Sir John Michel, who then objected nothing against the same ; 



NOTE Z Z. 

but now in a dead vacation, when both the adverse party and his counsel are 
out of town, and that I cannot possibly hear otherwise than with one ear, he 
clamours against me (most uncivilly), and would have me, contrary to all con- 
science and honestly reverse the same. The substance of the order is not so 
difficult and intricate, but your lordship will easily find out the equity or harsh- 
ness thereof. 

Sir Lawrence Hide makes a motion in behalf of one Strelley (a party whose 
face I never saw), that whereas Sir John Michel had put a bill into this court 
against him, and one Sayers, five years ago for certain lands and woods, (deter- 
minable properly at the common law) and having upon a certificate betwixt 
himself and Sayers, without the knowledge of the said Strelley, procured an in- 
junction from the last Lord Chancellor for the possession of the same, locks up 
the said Strelley with the said injunction, and never proceeds to bring his cause 
to hearing within five years. 

It was moved, therefore, that either Sir John's bill might be dismissed to a 
trial at the common law, or else that he might be ordered to bring it to hearing 
in this court, with a direction to save all wastes of timber trees (in favour of 
either party, that should prove the true owner) until the cause should receive 
hearing. 

Sir John being present in court, made choice of this last offer, and so it was 
ordered accordingly. And this is that order, that this strange man hath so 
often of late complained of to your mother, and now, as it seemeth, to your 
lordship. God is my witness, I have never denied either justice or favour 
(which was to be justified) to this man, or any other, that had the least relation 
to your good and most noble mother. And I hope your lordship is persuaded 
thereof. If your lordship will give me leave (without your lordship's trouble) to 
wait upon you, at any time this day, your lordship shall appoint, I would 
impart two or three words unto your lordship, concerning your lordship's own 
business. 

Aug. 8, 1622. 

present €imt$. 

That it is customary in the present times for suitors to solicit the judges, 
every person who has any knowledge of human nature, or has been in any 
judicial situation must well know. The hope of success and the belief in the 
justice of his case are passions too strong to restrain suitors from attempting to 
intercede with the judge. I have again and again heard Lord Eldon, and I 
think I may say every chancellor, complain of these applications ; and as a 
commissioner of bankrupts even, scarcely a month passes without some applica- 
tion being made to me. 

Suitors' Presents. 

Was it customary for suitors in the time of Lord Bacon to make presents to 
the judges 1 

1. Preface. 

2. Custom in former times. 

Homer. 
Plutarch. 
Merchant of Venice. 

3. Custom in foreign countries. 

Epices. 

4. Inquiry whether presents were made to judges in England. 

Before time of James. 
21 Henry VI. 

Sir Thomas More. 
Time of James, 



NOTE Z Z. 

Before time of Bacon. 

Proof that similar presents were made to other statesmen. 
After time of Bacon. 

Bishop Williams. 
After time of James. 

Sir M. Hale. 
Present times. 

Preface. 
It is, says Lord Bacon, (a) a secret in the art of discovery, that the nature 
of any thing is seldom discovered in the thing itself. If this doctrine is true, it 
may be expedient in entering upon this inquiry, to ascertain what has been the 
custom in other times and in other countries, with respect to solicitations and 
presents being made by the suitors to the judges. 

Custom informer times. 
Homer. 
Aaoi 8' eiv ayopy zaav dOpooi' evOa 8s veiKog 
Qpwpsc 8vo 8' av8psg lvi.iKi.ov ilviKa iroivrjg 
} Av8pbg dTrocpOi/xsvov 6 yav tv^ro ttclvt cnrodovvai 
ArjfMp TTHpavcnciov' 6 8' dvaivero jxn8kv ekkaOai' 
"Afitpo) d'ieaOnv ewi 'iptopi Trsipap tXkffOai. 
Aaoi 8' afxcpOTspoicnv £7rr]7rvov, d/x^ig apojyoi' 

(a) The nature of any thing is seldom discovered in the thing itself. — It com- 
monly happens, that men make experiments slightly, and as in the way of 
diversion, somewhat varying those already known ; and if they succeed not to 
their expectation, they grow sick of the attempt, and forsake it. Or, if they 
apply in earnest to experiments, they commonly bestow all their labour upon 
some one thing, as Gilbert upon the loadstone, and the alchemists upon gold. 
But this procedure is as unskilful as it is fruitless : for no man can advan- 
tageously discover the nature of any thing in that thing itself; but the inquiry 
must be extended to matters that are more common. 

And if any one applies himself to nature, and endeavours to strike out some- 
thing new, yet he will generally propose and fix upon some one invention, 
without further search : for example, the nature of the loadstone, the tides, the 
theory of the heavens, and the like ; which seem to conceal some secret, and 
have been hitherto unsuccessfully explained; whereas it is, in the highest 
degree, unskilful to examine the nature of any thing in that thing itself. For 
the same nature which in some things lies hid and concealed, appears open and 
obvious in others, so as to excite admiration in the one, and to pass unobserved 
in the other ; thus the nature of consistence is not taken notice of in wood or 
stone, but slighted under the term of solidity, without further inquiry into its 
avoidance of separation, or solution of continuity ; whilst the same thing appears 
subtile and of deeper inquiry, in bubbles of water, which throw themselves into 
their skins of a curious hemispherical figure, in order, for the instant, to avoid a 
solution of continuity. 

And again, those very things which are accounted secrets, have, in other 
cases, a common and manifest nature, which can never be discovered whilst the 
experiments and thoughts of men run wholly upon them. 

Whoever shall reject the feigned divorces of superlunary and sublunary 
bodies ; and shall intentively observe the appetences of matter and the most 
universal passions, which in either globe are exceeding potent, and transverbe- 
rate the universal nature of things, he shall receive clear information concerning 
celestial matters from the things seen here with us : and contrariwise from those 
motions which are practised in heaven, he shall learn many observations which 
now are latent, touching the motion of bodies here below, not only so far as 
their inferior motions are moderated by superior, but in regard they have a 
mutual intercourse by passions common to them both. 



NOTE Z Z. 

Krjpviceg (T dpa Xabv eprjrvov ol 8s yipovreg 
Eiar' e7rl IcoToTcrt XiOoig, Upu> evl kvkXw 
SK?77rrpa 8e tcrjpviciov ev xfocr' e%ov r]kpo(pu)V(t)V' 
Tolcriv 'imiT ijiaaov, dfj,oi$r]8ig 8' k8iKaZ,ov 
Ktlro 8' dp' sv /j,£(T(Tot(Ti 8vo xP v(J0 ~ i0 raXavra, 
T<£ 86fxev, og jiurd rdlai 8ikt]v iQvvrara eiiry, 

IXiaOog 2. 

There in the forum swarm a numerous train, 

The subject of debate, a townsman slain. 

One pleads the fine discharged, which one denied, 

And bade the public and the laws decide. 

The witness is produced on either hand ; 

For this or that, the partial people stand. 

The appointed heralds still the noisy bands, 

And form a ring with sceptres in their hands. 

On seats of stone, within the sacred place, 

The reverend elders nodded for the case. 

Alternate each th' attesting sceptre took, < 

And rising solemn each his sentence spoke : 

Two golden talents lay amidst in sight 

The prize of him who best adjudg'd the right. 

Plutarch. 

By supplying the people with money for the public diversions, (a) and for 
their attendance in courts of judicature, and by other pensions and gratuities, 
he (Pericles) so inveigled them as to avail himself of their interest against the 
council of the Areopagus, &c. 

Merchant of Venice. 

The following passage in the Merchant of Venice originates in the same 
principle. 

After Portia has pronounced judgment, there is the following dialogue : 

Bassanio. Most worthy gentleman, I and my friend 
Have by your wisdom been this day acquitted 
Of grievous penalties : in lieu whereof 
Three thousand ducats due unto the Jew, 
We freely cope your courteous pains withal. 

Ant. And stand indebted over and above 
In love and service to you evermore. 

Portia. He is well paid who is well satisfied, 
And, I, delivering you, am satisfied, 
And therein do account myself well paid. 
My mind was never yet more mercenary. 
I pray you know me when we meet again j 
I wish you well, and so I take my leave. 

Bas. Dear sir, of force I must attempt you further. 
Take some remembrance of us as a tribute, 
Not as a fee ; grant me two things, I pray you, 
Not to deny me and to pardon me. 

Por. You press me far, and therefore I will yield. 
Give me your gloves ; I'll wear them for your sake 
And for your love. I'll take this ring from you. 

(a) There were several courts of judicature in Athens, composed of a certain 
number of the citizens, who sometimes received one obolus each for every cause 
they tried ; and sometimes men who aimed at popularity procured this fee to be 
increased. — Translator's note. Plutarch's Lives. Langhorne. Life of Pericles. 



NOTE 7 7. 

Do not draw back your hand. I'll take no more 
And you in love shall not deny me this. 

Bas. This ring, good sir — alas ! it is a trifle ; 
I will not shame myself to give you this. 

Por. I will have nothing else but only this, 
And now, methinks I have a mind to it. 

Custom in Foreign Countries. 

Montesquieu, B. 28, c. 35. Of Costs. Montesquieu says, that in former 
times costs were not payable. The chapter then concludes thus : " The custom 
of appeals naturally introduced that of giving costs. Thus Defontaines says, 
that when they appealed by written law, that is, when they followed the new 
laws of St. Lewis, they gave costs ; but that in the usual custom, which did not 
permit them to appeal without falsifying the judgment, no costs were allowed. 
They obtained only a fine and the possession for a year and a day of the thing 
contested, if the cause was remanded to the lord. 

But when the number of appeals increased, from the new facility of appeal- 
ing ; when by the frequent usage of those appeals from one court to another, 
the parties were continually removed from the place of their residence ; when 
the new method of proceeding multiplied and perpetuated the suits ; when the 
art of eluding the very justest demands was refined ; when the parties at law 
knew only how to fly in order to be followed ; when actions proved destructive, 
and pleas easy ; when the arguments were lost in whole volumes of writings; 
when the kingdom was filled with members of the law who were strangers to 
justice ; when knavery found encouragement from mean practitioners, though 
discountenanced by the law ; then it was necessary to deter litigious people by 
the fear of costs. They were obliged to pay costs for the judgment, and for the 
means they had employed to elude it. Charles the Fair made a general ordi- 
nance on that subject. 

Epices. 

Epice, en terme de jurisprudence, ne s'emploie qu'au plurier, et on entend, 
par ce mot, des droits en argent que les juges de plusieurs tribunaux sont auto- 
rises a recevoir des parties pour la visite des proces par ecrit. Ces sortes de 
retributions sont appellees endroit sportulae ou species, mots qui signifient 
toutes sortes de fruits en general, et singulierement des aromates ; du dernier Ton 
a fait en francois epices, terme qui comprenoit autrefois toutes sortes de confi- 
tures, parce qu'avant la decouverte des Indes, et que l'on eut Pusage du Sucre, 
on faisoit coupre les fruits avec des aromates, et on en faisoit aux juges des 
presens, ce qui leur fit donner le nom d'epices. 

L'origine des epices, meine en argent, remonte jusq'aux Grecs. 

Homere, Iliade VI. dans la description qu'il fait du jugement qui etoit figure 
sur la bouclier d'Achille, rapporte qu'il y avoit deux talens d'or poses au milieu 
des juges, pour donner a celui qui opineroit le mieux. Ces deux talens etoient 
alors, il est vrai, de peu de valeur ; car Budee, en son iv e liv. de asse, en par- 
lant de talento homerico, prouve par un autre passage du xxiv e de Iliade que 
ces deux talens d'or etoient estimes moins qu'un chauderon d'airain. Plutarque, 
en la vie de Pericles, fait mention d'un usage qui a encore plus de rapport avec 
les epices ; il dit que Pericles fut le premier qui attribua aux juges d'Athenes 
des salaires appelles prytanees, parce qu'ils se prenoient sur les deniers que les 
plaideurs consignoient a l'entree du proces dans la prytanee, qui etoit un lieu 
public destine a rendre la justice. Cette consignation etoit du dixieme, mais 
tout n'etoit pas pour les juges : on prenoit aussi sur ces deniers le salaire des 
sergens ; celui du juge etoit appelle to diKacrriKov. 

A Rome, tous les magistrats et autres officiers avoient des gages sur la fisc, 
et faisoient serment de ne rien exiger des particuliers. II etoit cependant permis 
aux gouverneurs de recevoir de petits presens appelles xenia; mais cela etoit 
limite a des choses propres a manger ou boire dans trois jours. Dans la suite, 
Constantin abolit cet usage, et defendit a tous ministres de la justice d'exiger 
ni meme de recevoir aucuns presens, quelque legers qu'ils fussent ; mais Tri- 



NOTE Z Z. 

bonien, qui etoit lui-meme dans l'usage d'en recevoir, ne voulut pas insurer 
cette loi dans le code de Justinien. 

L'empereur lui-meme se relacha de cette severite par rapport aux juges d'un 
ordre inferieur ; il permit, par sa novelle 15. chap. 6, aux defenseurs des cites 
de prendre, au lieu de gages, quatre ecus pour chaque sentence definitive ; et en 
la novelle 82, chap. 19, il assigne aux juges pedanees quatre ecus pour chaque 
proces, a prendre sur les parties, outre deux marcs d'or de gages qu'ils avoient 
sur le public. 

Ces epices etoient appellees " sportulse," de meme que la salaire des appari- 
teurs et autres ministres inferieurs de la jurisdiction, ce qui venoit de sporta, 
qui etoit une petite corbeille ou Ton recueilloit les petits presens que les grands 
avoient coutume de distribuer a ceux qui leur faisoient la cour. 

Par les dernieres constitutions grecques, la taxe des epices se faisoit en egard 
a la somme dont il s'agissoit; comme de cent ecus d'or on prenoit un demi- 
ecu, et ainsi des autres sommes a proportion, suivant que le remarque Theo- 
phile, § tripl. instit. de action. 

On appelloit aussi, les epices des juges pulveratica, comme on lit dans 
Cassiodore, lib. xii. variar, ou il dit, pulveratica olim judicibus praestabantur ; 
pulveraticum etoit le prix et la recompense du travail, et avoit et6 ainsi appelle 
en faisant allusion a cette poussiere dont les luteurs avoient coutume de se 
couvrir mutuellement lorsqu'ils alloient au combat, afin d'avoir plus de prise 
sur leur antagoniste. Quelques-uns ont cru qu'anciennement en France les 
juges ne prenoient point d ; epices ; cependant outre qu'il est probable que Ton y 
suivit d'abord le meme usage que les Romains y avoient etabli, on voit dans 
les loix des Visigoths, liv. xi. tit. 2, chap. 15, qui etoient observes dans toute 
l'Aquitaine qu'il etoit permis au rapporteur de prendre un vingtieme, vigesimum, 
solidum pro labore et judicata causa ac legitime deliberate. II est vrai que 
le conseil de Verneuil tenu l'an 884 au sujet de la discipline ecclesiastique, 
defendit a tous juges ecclesiastiques ou lai'ques de recevoir des epices, ut nee 
episcopus, nee abbas, nee ullus laicus pro justitia facienda sportulas accipiat. 
Mais il paroit que cela ne fut pas toujours observe ; en effet, des le temps 
de St. Louis, il y avoit certaines amendes applicables au profit du juge, et 
qui dans ces cas tenoient lieu d'6pices. On voit, par example, dans l'ordon- 
nance que ce prince fit en 1254, que celui qui louoit une maison a quelque 
ribaude, etoit tenu de payer au bailli du lieu, ou au prev6t ou au juge, une 
somme egale au loyer d'une annee. 

Ce meme prince en abolissant une mauvaise coutume qui avoit ete long- 
temps observee dans quelques tribunaux, par rapport aux depens judiciaires et 
aux peines qui devoient supportez ceux qui succomboient, ordonne qu'au com- 
mencement du proces les parties donneront des gages de la valeur du dixieme 
de ce qui fut l'objet du proces ; que dans toute la cour du proces on ne levera 
rien pour les depens ; mais qu'a la fin du proces celui qui succombera, paiera 
a la cour la dixieme partie de ce a quoi il sera condamne, ou l'estimation ; que 
si les deux parties succombent, chacune en quelque chef, chacune paiera a pro- 
portion des chefs auxquels elle aura succombe ; que les gages seront rendus 
apres le jugement, a la partie qui aura gagne, que ceux qui ne pourront pas 
trouver des gages, donneront caution, &c. 

Ce dixieme de l'object du proces que l'on appelloit decima litium, servoit a 
payer les depens dans lesquels sont compris les droits des juges. II etoit alors 
d'usage dans les tribunaux lai'ques, que le juge sous pretexte de fournir au 
salaire de ses assesseurs, exigeoit des parties ce dixieme, ou quelque autre 
portion, avec les depenses de bouche qu'ils avoient faites, ce qui fut defendu 
aux juges d'eglise par Innocent III. suivant le chap. 10, aux decretales de vita 
et honestate clericorum, excepte lorsque le juge est oblige d'aller aux champs et 
hors de sa maison ; le chapitre cum ab omni, et le chapitre statutum, veulent 
en ce cas que le juge soit defraye. 

II n'etoit pas non plus alors d'usage en cour d'eglise de condamner aux 
depens : mais en cour laic il y avoit trois ou quatre cas ou Ton y condamnoit, 
comme il paroit par le chap. 92 des etablissemens de S. Louis en 1270, et ce 
meme chap, fait mention que la justice prenoit un droit pour elle. 



NOTE 2 Z. 

Les privileges accordes a la ville d'Aigues, mortes par le roi Jean, au mois 
de fevrier 1350, portent que dans cette ville les juges ne prendront rien pour les 
actes de tutele, curatelle, emancipation, adoption, ni pour la confection des 
testamens et ordonnauces qu'ils donneroient ; qu'ils ne pourroient dans aucune 
affaire faire faisir les effets des parties pour surete des frais, mais que quand 
l'affaire seroit finie, celui qui auroit ete condamne paieroit deux sous pour livre 
de la valeur de la chose si c'etoit un meuble ou de l'argent ; que si c'etoit un 
immeuble, il paieroit le vingtieme en argent de sa valeur, suivant l'estimation ; 
que si celui qui avoit perdu son proces, ne pouvoit en meme temps satisfaire a 
ce qu'il devoit a, sa partie et aux juges, la partie seroit payee par preference. 

II y eut depuis quelques ordonnances qui defendirent aux juges, meme 
laiques, de rien recevoir des parties ; notamment celle de 1302, rapportee dans 
l'ancien style du parlement, en ces termes ; " praefati officiarii nostri nihil 
penitus exigant a subjectis nostris." 

Mais l'ordonnance de Philippe de Valois, du 11 Mars 1344, permit aux 
commissaires deputes du parlement, pour la taxe des depens, ou pour l'audition, 
des temoins, de prendre chacun dix sous parisis pour jour, outre les gages du 
roi. 

D'un autre cote,Pusage s'introduisit que la partie qui avoit gagn6 son proces, 
en venant remercier ses juges, leur presentoit quelques boites de confitures 
seches au de dragees, que 1'on appelloit alors epices. Ce qui etoit d'abord 
purement volontaire passa en coutume, fut regarde comme un droit et devint de 
necessite : ces epices furent ensuite converties en argent ; on se trouve deux 
exemples fort anciens avant meme que les epices entrassent en taxe : l'un est 
du 12 Mars, 1369 ; le sire de Tournon, par licence de la cour, sur sa requete, 
donna vingt francs d'or pour les Apices de son proces juge, laquelle somme fut 
partagee entre les deux rapporteurs; l'autre est que le 4 juillet 1371 un con- 
seiller de la cour, rapporteur d'un proces, eut apres le jugement de chacune 
des parties six francs. 

Mais les juges ne pouvoient encore recevoir des Apices ou presens des parties 
qu'en vertu d'une permission speciale,et les epices n'etoient pas encore toujours 
converties en argent. En effet, Charles VI. par des lettres du 17 Mars 1395, 
pour certaines causes et considerations, permit a Guillaume de Sens, Pierre 
Boschet, Henri de Marie, et Ymbert de Boissy, presidens au parlement, et a 
quelques conseillers de cette cour, que chacun d'eux put, sans aucune offense, 
prendre une certaine quantite de queues de vin a eux donnees par la reine de 
Jerusalem et de Sicile, tante du roi. 

Papon, en ses arrets, tit. des epices, rapporte un arret du 7 Mai, 1384, qu'il 
dit avoir juge qu'en taxant les depens de la cause principale, on devoit taxer 
aussi les epices de l'arret. 

Cependant du Luc, liv. v. de ses arrets, tit. 5, art. 1, en rapporte un poste- 
rieur du 17 Mars 1403, par lequel il fut decide que les epices, qu'il appelle tra- 
gemata, n'entroient point en taxe, lorsqu'on en accordoit aux rapporteurs. 

II rapporte encore un autre arret de la meme ann£e qui enonce que dans les 
affaires importantes et pour des gens de qualite, on permettoit aux rapporteurs 
de recevoir deux on trois boites de dragees ; mais l'arret defend aux procureurs 
de rien exiger de leurs parties sous ombre d'epices. 

Ces boites de dragees se donnoient d'abord avant le jugement pour en acce- 
lerer l'expedition : les juges regarderent ensuite cela comme un droit, telle- 
ment que dans quelques anciens registres du parlement on lit en marge, non 
deliberetur donee solvantur species ; mais comme on reconnut Tabus de cet 
usage, il fut ordonne par un arret de 1437, rapporte par du Luc, liv. iv. tit. 5, 
art. 10, qu'on ne paieroit point les epices au rapporteur, et qu'on ne lui distri- 
bueroit point d'autre proces qu'il n'eut expedie celui dont il etoit charged II 
appelle en cet endroit les epices dicastica, ce qui feroit croire qu'elles etoient 
alors converties en argent. 

On se plaignit aux etats de Tours tenus en 1483, que la venalite des offices 
induisoit les officiers a exiger de grandes et excessives epices, ce qui etoit d'au- 
tant plus criant qu'elles ne passoient point encore en taxe : cependant l'usage 

VOL. XV. 13 



NOTE Z Z. 

en fut continue^ tellement que, par un arrel du 30 Novembre, 1494, il fut d6cid6 
que les Apices des proems jug6s sur lesquels les parties avoient transig6, devoient 
etre payees par les parties et non par le roi ; et ce ne fut que par un r6glement 
du 18 Mai, 1502, qu'il fut ordonne qu'elles entreroient en taxe. 

L'ordonnance de Roussillon, art. 31, et celle de Moulins, art. 14, defen- 
dirent aux juges presidiaux ; et autres juges inferieurs, de prendre des Apices 
excepte pour le rapporteur. 

La chambre des comptes fut autoris£e a en prendre par des lettres-patentes 
du 11 decembre, 1581, registries en ladite chambre le 24 mars, 1582. 

II y a cependant encore plusieurs tribunaux ou Ton ne prend point d'6pices, 
tels que le conseil du roi, les conseils de guerre. 

Les epices ne sont point accordees pour le jugement general, mais pour la 
visite du proces. 

L'edit du mois d'aout 1669 contient un reglement g6n£ral pour les epices et 
vacations. 

II ordonne que par provision et en attendant que S. M. se trouve en etat 
d'augmenter les gages des officiers de judicature, pour leur donner moyen de 
rendre la justice gratuitement, les juges, meme les cours, ne puissent prendre 
d'autres epices que celles qui auront ete taxees par celui qui aura preside, sans 
qu'aucun puisse prendre ne recevoir de plus grands droits, sous pr6texte d'ex- 
traits, de sciendum, ou d'arrets ; ce qui est conforme a ce qui avoit deja 6t6 
ordonne par l'art. 127 de l'ordonnance du Blois, qui veut que la taxe en soit 
faite sur les extraits des rapporteurs qu'ils auront faits eux-memes et que l'on y 
use de moderation. 

Celui qui a preside^ doit ecrire de sa main au bas de la minute du jugement, 
la taxe des epices, et le greffier en doit faire mention sur les grosses et expe- 
ditions qu'il delivre. Si le president de la compagnie est rapporteur de l'affaire, 
e'est Tofficier qui le suit imm^diatement dans l'ordre du tableau, qui doit faire 
la taxe des epices en prenant l'avis de ceux qui ont assiste" au jugement du 
proces. 

Au chatelet de Paris, il est d'usage que le president et le rapporteur taxent 
les epices, quand elles n'excedent par trois cens livres ; mais quand elles sont 
au-dessus, elles se reglent a la pluralite des voix par la compagnie, ainsi qu'il 
se pratiquoit autrefois dans les bailliages, senechausses, presidiaux, et pr^votes. 

M. Duperray, en son traite des dixines, chap. xii. fait mention d'une decla- 
ration du roi, dont il ne dit pas la date, qui remit, a ce qu'il dit, aux juges 
subalternes les epieces mal prises, en payant une taxe. 11 paroit etre d'avis 
que cette taxe ne dispense par ces juges de faire restitution a ceux dont ils ont 
exig£ induement des epices. 

La taxe des Apices doit &tre proportioned au travail, au nombre des seances 
employees a, la visite du proces, et a l'importance de 1'arTaire, sans avoir 6gard 
au nombre des juges, ni a la valeur des choses, en litige, ni a la qualite des 
parties litigantes. On ne doit en taxer aucunes pour les proces qui sont 
evoqu^s, ou dont la connoissance est interdite aux juges, encore que le rap- 
porteur en efit fait l'extrait, et qu'ils eussent 6te mis sur le bureau, et m£me vus 
et examines. 

II en est de meme de tous les jugemens rendus sur requete et des jugemens 
en matiere beneficiale ; lorsqu'apres la communication au parquet toutes les 
parties sont d'accorde de passer appointement sur la maintenue du benefice 
contentieux, s'il intervient arret portant que les titres et capacity des parties 
seront vus. 

II est defendu aux juges, a peine de concussion, de taxer ou prendre des 
epices : 1°. pour les arrets, jugemens ou sentences, rendus sur la requete d'une 
partie, sans que l'autre ait 6te entendue, a moins qu'il ne soit question d'une 
affaire criminelle, et qu'il n'y ait des proems verbaux ou informations joints a la 
requete : 2°. dans les causes civiles, ou les procureurs du roi, et ceux des seig- 
neurs sont parties a moins qu'il ne s'agisse de gros proces domaniaux : 3°. en 
matiere de police, quand les procureurs du roi, ou fiscaux sont seuls parties : 
4°. en matiere criminelle, lorsqu'il n'y a point de parties civiles, et que le 
proces se poursuit a la requete du ministere public : 5°. dans les jugemens de 



NOTE Z Z. 

competence pour les sentences de provision, pour les jugemens definitifs rendus 
sur des procedures, ou il n'y a ni r6collement ni confrontation : 6°. pour le 
jugement des affaires sommaires ou qui n'excedent pas le valeur de 100 liv. 
7°. dans les affaires qui se jugent a l'audience, ou sur le bureau, ou qui se deli- 
berent sur le registre : 8°. pour l'audition des coraptes des villes et des hopi- 
taux, et en general pour tout jugement interlocutoire ou de simple instruction. 

Un arret des grands jours de Clermont, avoit defendu aux juges de prendre 
des epices des parties qu'il ssavoient etre pauvres et confoimemement a cette 
regie le parlement de Toulouse avoit etabli que Ton n'en prendroit pas dans le 
proces des religieux mendians a moins que le jugement ne fut en leur faveur, 
parce qu'alors ils en obtiennent le remboursement de leur partie adverse. 

11 fut cree en 1581 et 1586 des offices de receveurs des epices dans les diffe- 
rens tribunaux de royaume : ceux du Beaujolois furent supprimes en 1588, les 
autres en 1626 et reunis aux offices de gressiers et de maitres-clercs des greffes. 
Mais par edit du mois de fevrier 1629, on retablit tous ceux qui avoient ete 
recus et installes, et qui n'avoient point ete rembourses. Ensuite on en crea 
d'alternatifs et de triennaux, qui ont ete suprimes ou reunis. II y a eu encore 
nombre d'autres creations et suppressions, dont le detail seroit trop long ; il 
suffit d'observer que dans quelques tribunaux ces officiers sont en titre d'office, 
dans d'autres ils sont par commission. 

L'edit de 1669 porte que les epices seront payees par les mains des greffiers, 
ou autres personnes chargees par l'ordre des compagnies qui en tiendront 
registres, sans que les juges ou leurs clercs puissent les recevoir par les mains 
des parties ou autres personnes. 

II est defendu aux greffiers, sous peine d'amende, de refuser la communi- 
cation du jugement, quoique les epices et vacations n'aient pas ete payees. 
Mais on ne peut les obliger a delivrer l'expedition du jugement avant le paie- 
ment des epices. 

Louis XII. avoit donne une ordonnance qui autorisoit les piges a user de 
contrainte contre les parties pour leurs epices ; mais cette ordonnance ne fut 
pas veripee, on permettoit seulement aux juges de se pouvoir par requete, 
suivant les arrets, rapportes par Guenois ; usage qui a ete aboli, aussi bien que 
celui de faire consigner les Apices avant le jugement, comme cela s'observoit 
dans quelques parlemens ; ce qui fut abroge par une declaration du 26 fevrier, 
1683, el autres a-peu-pres du meme temps. 

Presentement les juges, soit royaux, on des seigneurs ne peuvent decerner en 
leur nom, ni en celui de leurs greffiers, aucun executoire pour les epices, a 
peine de concussion ; mais on peut en delivrer executoire a la partie qui les a 
deboursees. II est egalement defendu aux juges, aux greffiers et a tous les 
autres officiers de justice, de prendre aucune promesse ou obligation, soit sous 
leur nom, soit sous celui d'autres personnes, pour les epices, droits et vacations 
qui peuvent leur appartenir. 

Les procureurs generaux et procureurs du roi, et leur substituts sont aussi 
autorises a prendre des epices pour les conclusions qu'ils donnent dans les 
affaires de rapport. Mais ils ne peuvent en prendre dans le cas ou il est defendu 
aux juges de le fairc. 

Lorsque la taxe, que les premiers juges ont faite des epices, est excessive, les 
juges superieurs doivent, en prononcant sur l'appel de la sentence, ordonner la 
restitution de ce qui a ete pris de trop, et meme, suivant les circonstances, les 
condamner a plus grande peine. II n'est pas meme necessaire d'entendre le 
juge dans ses defenses, quoiqu'il puisse se pouvoir par opposition contre le 
jugement qui lui enjoint de restituer. Un arret du conseil du 21 Aout, 1684, 
servant de reglement pour les presidiaux du Languedoc, ordonne que les resti- 
tutions d'epices, prononcees par le parlement contre les juges des s^nechaus- 
ses, seront poursuivies a la diligence du procureur-general : et a la diligence de 
ses substituts, lorsqu'elles auront ete ordonnes par jugement presidial et en 
dernier ressort, contre les juges inferieurs. 

La distribution des epices se fait entre le rapporteur et les officiers des sieges 
suivant l'usage et chaque compagnie. 

Les Apices ont le meme privilege que les depens, pour la contrainte par corps, 



NOTE ZZ. 

et elles doivent etre payees par preference a toute autre dette. Elles ne sont 
pas aussi faisissables, et sont payees par provision, nonobstant l'appel. 

Mr. Butler's Life of the Chancellor de I'Hopital. 

In Mr. Butler's life of the Chancellor Michel de I'Hopital there are three 
chapters upon the Chancellor's wish to reform abuses in the administration of 
justice. 

fist. The abolition of the sale of law offices. 

J 2nd. The abolition of the custom of making presents by the suitors to 

1 the judges. 

(_3rd. The abolition of fees to counsel. 

The second chapter, upon " the abolition of the custom of making presents 
by the suitors to the judges," the only important chapter relating to the present 
subject is annexed. 

Chap. X. — The Chancellor I'Hopital wishes to abolish the Epices. 

Another reformation in the administration of justice, which I'Hopital wished 
to effect, was the abolition of the epices, or presents made, on some occasions, 
by the parties in a cause, to the judges by whom it was tried. 

A passage in Homer, (24 II.) where he describes a compartment in the shield 
of Achilles, in which two talents of gold were placed between two judges, as 
the reward of the best speaker, is generally cited to prove, that even in the 
earliest times, the judges were paid for their administration of justice ; but an 
attentive reader will probably agree with Mr. Mitford in his construction of this 
passage, that the two talents were not the reward of the judge who should give 
the best opinion, but the subject of the dispute, and were to be adjudged to him, 
who established his title to them by the best arguments. — Plutarch mentions, 
that, under the administration of Pericles, the Athenian magistrates were first 
authorized to require a remuneration from the suitors of their courts. In 
ancient Rome, the magistrates were wholly paid by the public ; but Justinian 
allowed some magistrates of an inferior description to receive presents, which 
he limited to a certain amount, from the suitors before them. Montesquieu 
(Esprit des Loix, L. xxviii. ch. 35), observes, that " in the early ages of the 
feudal law, when legal proceedings were short and simple, the lord defrayed the 
whole expense of the administration of justice in his court. In proportion as 
society became refined, a more complex administration of justice became neces- 
sary ; and it was considered that not only the party who was cast, should, on 
account of his having instituted a bad cause, but that the successful party should, 
on account of the benefit which he had derived from the proceedings of the court, 
contribute, in some degree, to the expenses attending them ; and that the 
public, on account of the general benefit which it derived from the administration 
of justice, should make up the deficiency." To secure to the judges the pro- 
portion which the suitors were to contribute towards the expense of justice, it 
was provided, by an ordonnance of St. Louis, that at the commencement of a 
suit, each party should deposit in court the amount of one tenth part of the 
property in dispute : that the tenth deposited by the unsuccessful party should 
be paid over to the judges on their passing sentence ; and that the tenth of the 
successful party should then be returned to him. This was varied by subse- 
quent ordonnances. Insensibly it became a custom for the successful party to 
wait on the judges, after sentence was passed, and, as an acknowledgment of 
their attention to the cause, to present them with a box of sweetmeats, which 
"were then called epices, or spices. By degrees, this custom became a legal 
perquisite of the judges ; and it was converted into a present of money, and 
required by the judges before the cause came to hearing : Non deliberetur donee 
solventur species, say some of the ancient registers of the parliaments of France. 
That practice was afterwards abolished ; the amount of the epices was regu- 
lated ; and, in many cases, the taking of them was absolutely forbidden. 
Speaking generally, they were not payable till final judgment; and, if the 



yroTE z z. 

matter were not heard in court, but referred to a judge for him to hear, and 
report to the court upon it, he was entitled to a proportion only of the epices, 
and the other judges were entitled to no part of them. Those among the magis- 
trates who were most punctual and diligent in their attendance in court, and the 
discharge of their duty, had most causes referred to them, and were therefore 
richest in epices ; but the superior amount of them, however it might prove 
their superior exertions, added little to their fortune, as it did not often exceed 
50/. and never 100/. a year. The judges had some other perquisites, and also 
some remuneration from government ; but the whole of the perquisites and re- 
muneration of any judge, except those of the presidents, amounted to little more 
than the epices. The presidents of the parliament had a higher remuneration : 
but the price which they paid for their offices was proportionably higher, and 
the whole amount, received by any judge for his epices, perquisites, and other 
remunerations, fell short of the interest of the money which he paid for the 
charge ; so that it is generally true, that the French judges administered justice 
not only without salary, but even with some pecuniary loss. Their real remu- 
neration was the rank and consideration which their office gave them in society, 
and the respect and regard of their fellow citizens. How well does this illustrate 
Montesquieu's aphorism, that the principle of the French monarchy was honour ! 
It may be truly said, that the world has not produced a more learned, en- 
lightened, or honourable order in society, than the French magistracy. 

Englishmen are much scandalised when they are informed that the French 
judges were personally solicited by the suitors in court, their families and pro- 
tectors, and by any other person whom the suitors thought likely to influence 
the decision of the cause in their favour. But it all amounted to nothing : — to 
all these solicitations the judges listened with equal external reverence, and 
internal indifference ; and they availed themselves of the first moment when it 
could be done with decency, to bow the parties respectfully out of the room : it 
was a corvee on their time which they most bitterly lamented. 

Inquiry whether Presents were made to Judges in England. 

Before time of James. — 21 Henry VI. 

Receiving presents was a practice neither uncommon among his predecessors 
in that court, nor, I believe, imputed to them for unrighteousness. This will 
appear plainly by the curious anecdote that follows ; which I myself copied 
from the original manuscript, in the possession of Henry Wise, Esq. of Hampton 
Court, (a) 

Declarant etiam executores predicti quod ipsi ad speciale rogatum prcedicti 
domini Henrici fili docti Domini nuper comitis, quod erat eis ad preceptum, 
dederunt Domino Cancellario Angliae, 1 shaving bacyn argenti, quae erat predicti 
domini patris sui, viz. Ad excitandum dictum Dominum Cancellarium fore 
benevolum et benefacientem materiis dicti Domini Henrici in curiis Domini 
regis pendentibus pretium vm£. 

Declarant etiam executores predicti quod ipsi dederant Domini Archi. Can- 
tuaria? Cancellario Angliae, J. saultauri ad similitudinem Cervi jacentis facti,, 
quod erat dicti domini nuper comitis, appretiatum ad £40. 16s. M. ad inten- 
tionem ut ipse Dom. Archi. et Cane, suum bonum Dominum et auxilium dictis 
executoribus favorabiliter ostenderet et faceret in certis materiis que versus eos- 
dem executores ad grave prejudicium et impedimentum debite executionis 
testamenti et ultime voluntatis dicti Domini nuper comitis subtiliter movebantur - 
ad valentiam sicut predicitur. 

This paper is called, Declaracio Thomae Huggeford, Nicoli Rody et Willi. 
Berkswei presbyter. These were executors and feoffees of Richard Beauchamp, 
Earl of Warwick, and this declaration was made in the 21st year of Henry the 
Sixth, to account for certain plate, jewels, and so forth, which had come into 
their hands as his executors. 

(a) I copied this some years ago, but I have forgotten from whence. 



NOTE Z Z. 



Sir Thomas More. 
Life of Sir Thomas More. 

His integrity in his office was sufficiently proved by the reduced state of his 
circumstances when he resigned the seals ; but there are two or three anecdotes 
which will serve to illustrate this part of his character. 

After his fall, the Earl of Wiltshire, the father of Anne Boleyne, preferred a 
complaint against him to the council for having taken a bribe from one Vaughan. 
Sir Thomas confessed that he had received the cup from the hands of Vaughan's 
wife, but immediately ordering the butler to fill it with wine, he drank to her, 
and when she had pledged him, says he, " as freely as your husband hath 
given this cup to me, even so freely give I the same to you again, to give to 
your husband for his new year's gift." 

At another time one Gresham having a cause depending in Chancery, sent 
Sir Thomas a fair gilt cup, the fashion of which pleased him so well, that he 
caused one of his own, of more value to be delivered to the messenger for his 
master, nor would he receive it on any other condition. 

Being presented by a lady with a pair of gloves, and forty pounds in angels 
in them, he said to her, " Mistress, since it were against good manners to refuse 
your new year's gift, I am content to take your gloves, but as for the lining, I 
utterly refuse it." 

The following anecdote of More is given by Lord Bacon in his Essays : — 
A person who had a suit in Chancery sent him two silver flagons, not doubting 
of the agreeableness of the present. On receiving them, More called one of his 
servants, and told him to fill those two vessels with the best wine in his cellar ; 
and turning round to the servant who had presented them, " Tell your master/' 
replied the inflexible magistrate, " that if he approves my wine, I beg he would 
not spare it." 

Presents made temp. Jac. 

Sir Augustine Nicholls. 

Before the time of Lord Bacon. — In Lloyd's life of Sir Augustine Nicholls, 
who was one of the judges in the time of James the First, he says, '* He had 
exemplary integrity even to the rejection of gratuities after judgment given, and 
a charge to his followers that they came to their places clear handed, and that 
they should not meddle with any motions to him that he might be secured from 
all appearance of corruption. 

When the charge was made against Lord Bacon, the following observation 
was made in the House of Commons, as appears in the Journals of Lunae 26° 
Martii, 19° Jacobi . — Alford. That the Chancery hindereth commerce at home. 
Many things propounded about the Lord Chancellor. Thinketh he took gra- 
tuities ; and the Lord Chancellor before, and others before him. Hath a ledger- 
book, where 30s. given to a secretary, and 10/. to a Lord Chancellor, for his 
pains in hearing a cause. Will proceed from Chancellor to Chancery : will 
offer heads, to be considered by a committee. The Chancery to be confined to 
breach of trust, covin, and accident. Not to have our wills, or gift of lands, 
questioned, where no fraud. 

That before the time of Lord Bacon it was customary to make presents to the 
Chancellor may, as it seems, be collected from the nature of the charges made 
against Lord Bacon, from which it appears that presents were made to him 
within a few hours after he was entrusted with the seals ; that they were made 
publicly, and as a matter of course, by men of eminence who were counsel in 
the cause, and were made generally after the cause was decided, and by both 
parties to the suit, and had not any influence upon the judgment. Now as 
Lord Bacon held the great seals only four years, it is scarcely possible to sup- 
pose that such a custom could, during this short interval, have originated, and 
thus extensively and deeply pervaded the profession. 

That they were made openly appears from the following facts. 



NOTE Z Z. 

They were made by counsel in the cause and persons of eminence. In his 
answer to the 24th, 25th, and 26th charges in which the Chancellor was 
accused of having- received presents from the companies of Grocers and Apothe- 
caries, he says, " If I had taken it in the nature of a bribe, I knew it could 
not be concealed, because it must be put to the account of the three several 
companies." On the 20th of March Sir Richard Young said, in the House of 
Commons, that, when he attended upon my Lord Chancellor, Sir John Trevor's 
man brought a cabinet, and a letter to my Lord Chancellor, and entreated me 
to deliver it, which I did openly ; and this was openly done, and this was all 
I knew of it. Sir Edward Coke said, " It was strange to him that this money 
should be thus openly delivered, and that one Gardner should be present at the 
payment of the £200." 

The Charges. 

That it was customary for presents to be made by the suitors to the Chan- 
cellor in the time of Lord Bacon, may be collected from his lordship's answers 
to the charges which were preferred against him. 

In the first charge, which was in the case of Egerton and Egerton, the cause 
was heard by the Chancellor, with the assistance of Lord Hobart, and the 
present was made some days after the decision was pronounced. Unless it was 
customary in these times to receive presents, why was the present made after 
the cause was decided? His words are : " I do confess and declare, that upon 
a reference from his majesty of all suits and controversies between Sir Rowland 
Egerton and Edward Egerton, both parties submitted themselves to my award 
by recognizances reciprocal in ten thousand marks apiece ; thereupon, after 
divers hearings, I made my award with the advice and consent of my Lord 
Hobard ; the award was perfected and published to the parties, which was in 
February. Then some days after the £300. mentioned in the charge was deli- 
vered unto me. Afterwards Mr. Edward Egerton fled off from the award ; 
then in Midsummer term following a suit was begun in Chancery to have the 
award confirmed, and upon that suit was the decree made mentioned in the 
article. 

The second charge is in the same cause. In the first charge the present was 
made on behalf of Rowland Egerton, one of the suitors. In the second charge 
it was made on behalf of Edward Egerton, the other suitor ; and on his behalf 
the presents were made by men of eminence, Sir George Hastings, and Sir 
Richard Young, counsel in the cause, and members of parliament. Unless, 
therefore, it can be supposed that the whole bar could be accessary to crime, 
and that suitors could be so wild as to imagine that the judgments would be 
influenced by money presented by both parties, it seems to follow that it was 
customary to receive presents. It appears also in the Chancellor's answer to 
this second charge, that the presents were made soon after his coming to the 
seals, when presents were made by many. His words are : "I confess and 
declare, that soon after my first coming to the seal, being a time when I was 
presented by many, the £400. mentioned in the said charge was delivered unto 
me in a purse, and as I now call to mind from Mr. Edward Egerton, but as far 
as I can recollect, it was expressed by them that brought it to be for favours 
past, and not in respect of favours to come." 

To the third charge, which was the case of Hody and Hody, the present was 
also made after the decision, and made by Sir Thomas Perrott, who was, I 
suspect, counsel in the cause, and was a present of gold buttons worth £50. 
which, even if it had been before the decision, can scarcely be supposed to be 
the bribe that would be made to influence the judgment in a cause of great 
inheritance. His words are; " I confess and declare, that as it is laid in the 
charge, about a fortnight after the cause was ended it being a suit for a great 
inheritance there was gold buttons about the value of £50. as is mentioned in 
the charge presented unto me, as I remember by Sir Thomas Perrott and the 
party himself." 

In the fifth charge, which was in Sir Thomas Monck's case, the present was 
made three quarters of a year after the decree, and it was made by Sir Henry 



NOTE Z Z. 

Holmes, who was probably one of the counsel for Sir Thomas Monck. His 
words are : " I confess it to be true that I received a hundred pieces ; but it 
was long after the suit ended, as is contained in the charge." 

In the sixth charge, which was in the cause of Trevor and Ascue, the present 
was made by some person on the part of Sir John Trevor, and after issue 
directed, and was presented, as seems to have been customary, as a new year's 
gift. His words are : "I confess and declare, that I received as a new year's 
gift £100. from Sir John Trevor ; and because it came as a new year's gift, I 
neglected to inquire whether the cause was ended or depending, but since I find 
that though the cause was then dismissed to a trial at law, yet the equity is 
reserved, so as it was in that kind pendente lite. 

In the seventh charge, which was in the case of Holman and Young, the 
present was made either by Mr. Tobie Matthew or by Mr. Young, and made 
after the cause was ended. Mr. Tobie Matthew was the son of Dr. Matthew, 
Archbishop of York. He was an intimate friend of Lord Bacon's. He was a 
lover of intellectual pursuits, and translated Lord Bacon's Essays into Italian. 
He was a religious and conscientious man. He submitted to great privations 
for ten years (from 1607 to 1617) on account of his religious opinions, having 
been seduced by Father Parsons to the Catholic religion. He was knighted by 
King James, 1623. 

Is it possible to suppose that such a man would have offered these presents, 
unless it was in compliance with a general custom? Is not Bishop Taylor 
right when, in his Essay on Friendship, he says, " He that does a base thing 
in zeal for his friend burns the golden thread that ties their hearts together." 

His words are : " I confess and declare, that as I remember, a good while 
after the cause ended I received £100. either by Mr. Tobie Matthew, or from 
Young himself; but whereas I have understood that there was some money 
given by Holman to my servant Hatcher, to that certainly I was never made 
privy." 

In the eighth charge, which was in the case of Fisher and Wrenham, a suit 
of hangings was given by Mr. Shute, who was I conceive counsel in the cause, 
and after the cause was decided. It was given towards finishing his house, as 
others, no ways suitors, did about that time present him. His words are : " I 
confess and declare that some time after the decree passed, I being at that time 
upon remove to York House, I did receive a suit of hangings of the value, I 
think, mentioned in the charge by Mr. Shute, as from Sir Edward Fisher, 
towards the furnishing of my house, as some others, that were no way suitors, 
did present me with the like about that time." 

The 10th charge, which was in the cause of Vanlore, the fact of a loan of 
£1000. was so far from being a secret that Lord Bacon wrote to a friend about 
the king, stating that he owed the money, and wished it to be set off against a 
sum due from him for a fine. His words are : "I confess and declare, that I 
borrowed the money in the article set down, and that this is a true debt ; and I 
remember well that I wrote a letter from Kew, about a twelvemonth since, to a 
friend about the king, wherein I desired, that whereas I owed Peter Vanlore 
£2000. his majesty would be pleased to grant me so much out of his fine set 
upon him in the Star Chamber. 

The eleventh charge, which was in the cause of Scott and Lenthall, the 
present was made after the decree, by Mr. Shute, whom, as I have before 
stated, I conceive to have been counsel on behalf of Scott ; and in the charge, 
which was in the same cause, a present was made by his servant Sherborn, on 
behalf of Sir John Lenthall, who seems not to have been an adverse party, but 
some third person who was benefited. His words are : "I confess and declare, 
that some fortnight after, as I can remember, that the decree passed, I received 
£200. as from Mr. Scott, by Mr. Shute ; but precedent, promise, or transaction 
by Mr. Shute, certain I am I know of none." 

The thirteenth charge, which was in the cause of Worth and Manwaring, 
which was a cause for a valuable inheritance, the present was made by Mr. 
Worth, some months after the cause was ended, which was ended not after 
conflict but by consent. His words are : "I confess and declare, that this 



NOTE Z Z. 

cause being a cause for inheritance of good value, was ended by my arbitrament 
and consent of parties, so a decree passed of course, and some months after the 
cause was ended, the £100. mentioned in the said article was delivered to me 
by my servant Hunt. 

The fourteenth charge, which was in the cause of Sir Richard Hurdsley, the 
present was made by Mr. Tobie Matthew. His words are : " I confess and 
declare that there were two decrees, one, as I remember, for the inheritance, 
and the other for the goods and chattels, but all upon one bill ; and some good 
time after the first decree, and before the second, the said £500. was delivered 
unto me by Mr. Tobie Matthew ; so as 1 cannot deny but it was, upon the 
matter, pendente lite. 

The sixteenth charge, which was in the cause of Aubrey and Brucker, the 
present was made by Sir George Hastings and Mr. Jenkins. His words are : 
" I do confess and declare that the sum was given and received, but the manner 
of it I leave to witnesses." 

In the seventeenth charge, which was in Lord Montagu's cause, the present 
was made after the decree. His words are : " I confess and declare there was 
money given, and, as I remember, to Mr. Bevis Thelwall, to the sum men- 
tioned in the article after the cause was decreed, but I cannot say it was ended ; 
for there have been many orders since caused by Sir Francis Inglefield's con- 
tempts, and I do remember that when Thelwall brought the money, he said 
that my lord would be yet further thankful if he could once get his quiet, to 
which speech I gave little regard." 

In the eighteenth charge, which was in the cause of Drunck, the present was 
made by Mr. Thelwall, as it seems after the decree. His words are : " I con- 
fess and declare that it was delivered by Mr. Thelwall to Hatcher, my servant, 
for me, as I think sometime after the decree, but I cannot precisely inform my- 
self of the time." 

In the nineteenth charge, which was in the cause of Reynell and Pencival, 
the present of £200. was made by Sir George Reynell, a near relation, before 
any suit commenced, at his first coming to the seals : a diamond ring, pendente 
lite, as a new year's gift. His words are : " I confess and declare, that at my 
first coming to the seal, when I was at Whitehall, my servant Hunt delivered 
to me £200. from Sir George Reynell, my near ally, to be bestowed upon fur- 
niture of my house ; adding, further, that he had received divers former favours 
from me, and this was, as I verily think, before any suit begun ; the ring was 
certainly received pendente lite, and though it were at New Year's tide, it was 
of too great a value for a New Year's gift, though, as I take it, nothing near the 
value mentioned in the charge." 

The twentieth charge, which was the cause of Peacock, the present was 
made, at Lord Bacon's first coming to the seal, and when no suit was pending. 
His words are : " I confess and declare, that I received of Mr. Peacock £100. 
at Dorset House, at my first coming to the seal, as a present, at which time no 
suit was begun ; and at the summer after, I sent my then servant Lister to 
Mr. Rolfe, my good friend and neighbour at St. Albans to use his means with 
Mr. Peacock, who was accounted a monied man for the borrowing of £500. 
and after by my servant Hatcher for borrowing of £500. more, which Mr. Rolfe 
procured ; and told me at both times it should be without interest, script, or 
note, and that I should take my own time for payment of it." 

In the twenty-second charge, which was in the cause of Raswell, the present 
was made months after the decree, which was made with the assistance of two 
judges. His words are : "I confess and declare that I received money from 
my servant Hunt, as from Mr. Raswell, in a purse ; and whereas the sum in 
the article being indefinite, I confess it to be £300. or £400., and it was about 
some months after the cause was decreed ; in which decree I was assisted by 
two of the judges." 

In the twenty-third charge, which was in the cause of Barker, the present 
was made some time after the decree. His words are : " I confess and declare, 
that the sum mentioned in the article was received from Mr. Barker some time 
after the decree passed." 

vol. xv. 14 



NOTE Z Z. 

In the twenty-fourth, twenty-fifth, and twenty-sixth charges, which were in a 
cause between the companies of Grocers and Apothecaries, presents were made 
by both parties, and after the cause was terminated ; and in this case it is clear 
it was considered a public act. He admits the several sums to have been 
received of the three parties, but alleges, " that he considered those presents as 
no judicial business, but a concord of composition between the parties : and as 
he thought they had all three received good, and they were all common purses, 
he thought it the less matter to receive what they voluntarily presented ; for if 
he had taken it in the nature of a bribe, he knew it could not be concealed, be- 
cause it must be put to the account of the three several companies." 

Des Cartes. 
Hence Des Cartes, in his History of England, says : " Coke was not yet 
ashamed to accuse Bacon of corruption for what had been done by all his pre- 
decessors without reproach. It had been a practice, perhaps from the time 
that our kings had ceased to take money for the purchase of writs, to sue in 
their courts, for suitors to make presents to the judges who sat in them, either 
in New Year's tide, or when their causes were on the point of coming to an 
hearing : it was a thing of course, not considered in the nature of a bribe, being 
universally known, and deemed an usual or honorary perquisite. Mr. Alford, 
one of the most eminent members in the House of Commons observed, " That 
in the leiger books of his family there were entries of 30s. paid to a secretary, 
and £10. to a Lord Chancellor for his pains in hearing a cause, and that this ' 
passed from Chancellor to Chancellor : it seems indeed generally allowed that 
former Chancellors had received the like gratuities as were given to Bacon. A 
blot is none till it is hit, but it was now made use of to ruin the present Chan- 
cellor, who had been charged in vain by Coke as one of the referees of Mom- 
pressin's patents whilst he was attorney ; but he, not appearing to have been of 
the number, got clear of that accusation, either for this reason, or because it was 
not thought proper to prosecute the others. 

Proof that it was the custom of the times for similar presents to be made to other 
statesmen . 

To Sir Robert Cecil. 
Sir, — Your honour knoweth my manner is, though it be not the wisest way, 
yet taking it for the honestest, to do as Alexander did by his physician in 
drinking the medicine and delivering the advertisement of suspicion ; so I trust 
on, and yet do not smother what I hear. I do assure you, sir, that by a wise 
friend of mine, and not factious toward your honour, I was told with assevera- 
tion, that your honour was bought by Mr. Coventry for 2000 angels ; and that 
you wrought in a contrary spirit to my lord your father. And he said further, 
that from your servants, from your lady, from some counsellors that have 
observed you in my business, he knew you wrought under hand against me. 
The truth of which tale I do not believe ; you know the event will show, and 
God will right. But as I reject this report, (though the strangeness of my case 
might make me credulous,) so I admit a conceit that the last messenger my 
lord and yourelf used, dealt ill with your honours ; and that word (speculation) 
which was in the Queen's mouth rebounded from him as a commendation, for I 
am not ignorant of those little arts. Therefore, I pray, trust not him again in 
my matter. This was much to write, but I think my fortune will set me at 
liberty, who am weary of asserviling myself to every man's charity. Thus, 
I, &c. 

By the following letters it appears that similar presents were made to other 
statesmen : 

Foulke Grevill, Esq. to Mr. Francis Bacon. 

Mr. Francis Bacon, — Saturday was my first coming to the court, from whence 
I departed again as soon as I had kissed her majesty's hands, because I had a 
lodging nearer than my uncle's, which is four miles off. This day I came 



NOTE Z Z. 

thither to dinner, and waiting for to speak with the Queen, took occasion to tell 
how I met you, as I passed through London ; and among other speeches, how 
you lamented your misfortune to me, that remained as a withered branch of her 
roots, which she had cherished and made to flourish in her service. I added 
what I thought of your worth, and the expectation for all this, that the world 
had of her princely goodness towards you ; which it pleased her majesty to con- 
fess, that indeed you began to frame very well, insomuch as she saw an amends 
in those little supposed errors, avowing the respect she carried to the dead, with 
very exceeding gracious inclination towards you. Some comparisons there fell 
out besides, which 1 leave till we meet, which J hope shall be this week. It 
pleased her withal to tell of the jewel you offered her by Mr. Vice-Chamberlain, 
which she had refused, yet with exceeding praise. I marvel, that as a prince 
she should refuse those havings of her poor subjects, because it did include a 
small sentence of despair ; but either I deceive myself, or she was resolved 
to take it ; and the conclusion was very kind and gracious. Sure as I will one 
hundred pounds to fifty pounds that you shall be her solicitor and my friend ; 
in which mind and for which mind I commend you to God. From the court, 
this Monday in haste, 

Your true friend to be commanded by you, Foulke Grevill. 

We cannot tell whether she come to , or stay here. I am much 

absent for want of lodging ; wherein my own man hath only been to blame. 
Indorsed— 17th of June, 1594. 

Letter from Lord Salisbury to Mr. Hyckes. 

Mr. Hycks, — I pray you return to Mr. Owen thanks for that whereof this 
nieu years gyft is the signe ; for though these externall things are welcome to 
many for themselfs, yet I ptest (protest) to me they are nonly (not unaccept- 
able) because I know they are not sent with opinion to purchass my good will, 
but to demonstrate theirs ; for otherwise I do take it rather unkindly of friends 
then otherwise to have any such things given me. For your fine instruments to 
way (weigh) perl I thank you, and till I see you will end your loving Friend, 
Mr. Michael Hickes, Ro. Cecyll. 

3 Jan. 1601-2. 

Letter from F. Courtney to Mr. Hyckes. 

Good Mr. Hyckes,— Your well approved faythful kindness hath mad me 
have boldness towards you to entreate healpe and direction in a late fallen office, 
what is by the death of Mr. Rycassius, one of the clerks of the sygnet ; and for 
that my Lord Treasurer's furtherance maye muche avayle me, I doe most 
earnestly entreatt your helpe in the procuringe thereof, only to second the sute, 
when by some other yf it please him, not the Queen hath moved ; and in my 
thankfulness I will deliver unto whom he will please to appoint £100. and to 
yourself 100 angels. And that my office which I have may be no hindrance, 
you know my attendance in court will be but one month, and my place at 
Southampton affords a deputie ; so as all objection of denyal (if therein it stand) 
will be taken away. Thus much have I presumed upon you, whereof I entreate 
your answer, and even so do most heartily salute you, wishing you all happiness. 

Dytton, this 28th of Apryll. Ever yours, Fra. Courtenay. 

To the worshipful my very good friend, 

Mr. Michall Hyckes, at the court. 

Letter from Bishop of Durham to Lord Burleigh. 

Right Honourable, — Your L. having alwaies been an especiall patron to the 
see of Duresme, wherein it hath now pleased God and her majesty to place me, 
thoughe unworthie ; and myself reaping the fruite of your L. and extraordinarie 
furtherance in obtayning the same, I could not without great note of ingratitude 
(the monster of nature) but yelde your L. some signification of a thankful 



NOTE Z Z. 

minde. And seeking by all good means, but contrary to myne expectation, 
not finding any office or other particular presentlie voyde, either fitt for me to 
offer your lordship, or sure for your L. to receive at my hande, I have presumed 
in lieu thereof to present your good lordship with an hundred pounds in golde, 
which this bringer will deliver to your L. It is no recompense any waie pro- 
portionable, I confesse, to your lordship's great goodnesse towards me, but 
onely a sclender token of my dutie most bounden to your L. and a pledge of my 
service alwaies to be at your L. commandment afore and above any man alive, 
which I beseech your lordship to accept in such part as is simply and faithfully 
meant. And so desyring the continuance and encrease of your L. honorable 
opinion and favour, of the which I shall endeavour, by God's grace, your L. 
shall never repent yourselfe. I most humblie betake your good L. to the 
blessed tuition of the Almighty. Your Lordship's most humble and bounden, 

April, 1595. Tobias Dunelm. 

To the Right Honorable my singular goode Lorde, 

the Lord Burleigh, Lord H. Treasurer of England. 

Lansd. 72. Art. 72. 

Good Mr. Hickes, — With my hastye commendations, and as many thanks 
as there ys farthings in twentye pounds, which I have sent ye by this bearer ; 
and I pray ye be twice as bolde with me in any thing that I can pleasure ye 
withall. My Lorde Keeper hath preferred me to a greate offyce in this cuntry, 
that is, to be a collector of the ffyffteenths, which yf my lorde hadd known me 
very well, what for my ylnes and my unableness to travel), I have no doubte 
but that he would have pardoned me, but nowe there is no remadye. I must 
needs follow my collections, which will make me to vysite you this next terme ; 
and therefore I praye you, if I chance to be behinde hand, I will require your 
friendshippe to be a meane to my lord to give me some dayes till I may get it 
up. I have no good thinge presentlie to pleasure you withal, but at my cominge 
up, if I do know of any good thinge in the country, you shall be sure if it lye 
in me to gett it to have it. And so I doe ende the 15 daye of Oct. 1592. 

Yo. assured friend, Maurice Berkjly. 

To the worshipful and assured good friende, 
Mr. Michael Hyckes, geve theise. 

From Mr. Michael Hyckes. 

Although I had not received your kinde letter of remembrance by this gent. 
Mr. Buck, or had not been provoked by the cominge downe of so fit a bearer as 
he is to have written unto you, yet would I neither have forgotten my promise 
nor your many received friendships, who have nothinge else to requite them 
withal than an honest true affection towards you, whereof also I can make no 
other demonstration but in these pety kynde of offices now and then as occasions 
are offered (which I know are as welcome and acceptable to you as 20 faire 
angels laid in the hands of us poor bribers here in court). 

(The remainder of the letter is on the preference of a country to a court life.) 

To Mr. Manners. (No signature.) 

Justys Younge being onne your ould suter, well hopes you may soune 
dispach her. Shee hath twyse been sent for, and by the messengers assured that 
if she will give the sum you knowe of, her sute shall presentlie be dispached, 
but she refused to hearken to it, restynge upon me. Wherefore, I pray you, 
sende me worde what you will doe. If you will dispach it, what I said shall 
be performed ; if not give her liberty to seeke other, which I wish she should 
not neede. I pray you to write me worde whether my lorde to the court before 
the remove. Your loving friend, George Cumberland. 

To my very loving friend, Mr. Hyckes, 
Secretary to my L. Treasurer. 



NOTE Z Z. 

This letter seems to involve Mr. Secretary Hicks in a suspicion of bribery. 
In which case it is strange that it should exist, unless it be argued that its 
preservation is rather a token of Mr. Hicks's innocence. But even his master 
was attacked in this manner. See the Duke of Wirtemburg's letter, No. 68. 
It is to be hoped that there the blame was altogether with him that sent the 
gyft. — Note by Mr. Douce, of the British Museum. 72 Lansd. 

Sir, — Considering with myself the absolute disposition of my L. I hold it 
under your allowance very material to your better successe, that after you shall 
have spoken with Sir Thomas, who will offer the occasion if he meet with you, 
that you let my lorde understande of his inclination to give over, giving your 
motion to him as for one whom my L. affecting so as that Sir Thomas may 
seem rather to resolve of resignation from my L. his likinge than first desire my 
lorde to like of his particular resignation. 

Sir, I am bould to present you with a very little mullet of sack, the which 
I will send to-morrow to Rucholles, noe waie I protest unto you as a recom- 
pense for your kindnesse, but as an obligation of my thankful disposition, the 
which, I know, you only regardinge, will receive with the same hande I give it, 
with the which likewise I presume to promise you fortie pounds either in golde 
or plate at your choyce, at my beinge possessed of the place with your good 
likinge and favor of my lorde your most honorable friend, neither will my thank - 
fulnesse end in that and the interest in me in the worde of an honeste man 
shall for ever (continue) and howsoever it shall fall out, my ever respectes and 
thanks shall be in your good likinge : and so cravinge pardon for my boldnesse, 
I humbly take my leave, and rest your very lovinge and thankful friend to 
dispose of, Ro. Kayle. 

My howse at Radcliffe, the 25 of Feb. 1604. 

To the Right Worshipful Sir Michael Hickes, 
knight in Austen Friere. 

[MS. Lansdown. Mus. Brit. vol. 76. art. 68. original.] 
Frederick, Duke of Wirtemberg, to Lord Burghley. 

Monsieur, — Je ne doubte que vous ne soyez aduertij de ce que j'ay par cij 
deuant, comme mesmes auec ceste commodite, escrit et demande humblement 
a La Serenissime Royne d'Angleterre et de me laisser passer environ 1000 
pieces de trap hors le renomme royaulme d'Icelle, librement et sans aulcun 
peage, et pource que je scay, que vous pourrez beaucoup en cest affaire. 
Je vous prye bien fort, vous ij employer. Affin que je puisse auoir vne 
bonne et brefue respounce, telle comme je le desire et demande, dont mon 
commis le present porteur a charge, vous je present de ma part vne chaine 
d'or pov. vos peines. Laquelle accepterez : s'il vous plaist de bon cueur. En 
tous lieux la on j'auray moyen de recognoistre cela en vre endroict j'en suis 
content de vous grattiffier a vre contentement, de telle volunte, comme apres 
mes affectionnees recommendatione. Prye dieu vous auoir. 

Monsieur, en sa sainte digne garde. De Stuctgart ce 12me de Decembre, 
1594. Vre bien affectionne, Friderich. 

A Monseigneur Monseigneur le Grandt 
Tresorier dengleterre. 

Bishop Williams. 

The following is from Weldon : — This Williams, though he wanted much of 
his predecessor's abilities for the law, yet did he equal him for learning and 
pride, and beyond him in the way of bribery : this man answering by petitions, 
in which his servants had one part, himself another, and was so calculated to be 
worth to him and his servants £3000 per annum, by a new way never found 
out before. — Weldon, 450. 

The explanation of this will be found in the following extracts from Hackett's 
Life of Bishop Williams : 



NOTE Z Z. 

Among the qualities of a good judge there is one remaining and fit to bring 
up the rear, which the king looked upon as to be presaged in his new officer, 
' an hand clean from corruption and taking gifts,' which blind the eyes of the 
wise, and pervert the words of the righteous. — Deut. xvi. 19. It was loudly 
exclaimed, and the king was ashamed to have so far mistaken the persons, that 
there were sucking horse-leeches in great places. Things not to be valued 
at money were saleable, and what could not gold procure? As Menander 
writes, 

4>t\oi SiKagai, fxacprvpeg, 
fiovov di£>& : avrsg yap t£,ug rag Gang V7reperag. 

That is, friends and judges and witnesses, you may have them for a price ; 
nay, such as sit in the place of God will serve you for such wages. The wise 
king having little prevailed by monitions and menaces against this sordid filthi- 
ness, cast his liking upon a man whom he might least suspect for gripleness 
and bribery. The likeliest, indeed, of all others to shake this viper from his 
hand, and to be armed with a breastplate of integrity against the mammon of 
iniquity, for he was far more ready to give than to take, to oblige than to be 
beholdinge. " Magis illud laborari ut illi quamplurimi debeant," as Sallust 
of Jugurtha. 

He was well descended of a fortunate and ancient lineage, and had made 
his progress to advancements by steps of credit, a good bridle against base 
deviations. What then made an unsavoury historian call him country pedant? 
A reproach with which H. L. doth flirt at him, in his history of King Charles, 
a scornful untruth. So I shake off this bar, and return to the reverend dean, 
who was in a function of holy calling next to God. Among them I know all 
have not been incorrupt : the sons of Samuel turned aside after lucre, and took 
bribes and perverted judgment. 1 Sam. viii. 3. But commonly, I trust, they 
do not forget what a scandal it is if God's stewards, turn the devil's rent 
gatherers. He was also unmarried and so unconcerned in the natural impulsion 
of avarice to provide for wife and children. Our old moral men touched often 
upon this string that justice is a virgin UapOsvs cti Sikh, says Hesiod, and 
therefore fit to be committed to the trust of a virgin magistrate. He was never 
sullied with suspicion that he loved presents : no not so much as Gratuidad di 
Guantes as the Spaniards phrase is, but to go higher, they are living that know 
what sums of value have been brought to his secretaries, such as might have 
swayed a man that was not impregnable, and with how much solicitousness 
they have been requested to throw them at his feet for favours already received, 
which no man durst undertake, as knowing assuredly it would displace the 
broker, and be his ruin. And it was happy for him, when five years after lime- 
hounds were laid close to his footsteps to hunt him, and every corner searched 
to find a tittle of that dust behind his door. But it proved a dry scent to the 
inquisitors, for to his glory, and shame to his enemies, it could never appear 
that the least birdlime of corruption did stick to his fingers. 

Among the exceptions with which Lord Cranfield did exagitate him, one may 
require a larger answer than he thought him worthy of in that humour. He 
replies to him very briefly to him in the laconic form, because such brittle ware 
would break with a touch. The treasurer was misinformed or coined it out of 
his own head. That the Keeper dispatched great number of cases by hearing 
petitions in his chamber, and he did usually reverse decrees upon petitions. 
That £40,000 had been taken in one year among his servants by such spurious 
and illegitimate justice. 

That he did much work by petitions and treble as much in the first year as in 
those that succeeded, it is confessed. First, the hindrances had been so great 
which the court sustained before he began to rectify them, that unless he had 
allowed poor men some furtherance by motions or petitions, they had been 
undone for want of timely favour. 

Secondly, all high potentates and magistrates under them have ever employed 
some at their hand to give answers to supplicants that made requests unto them. 



NOTE Z Z. 

Therefore, to straiten his course against all presumption of errors, he directed 
two remonstrances ; the first, to the lord marquis, September the 8th, the other 
to his majesty, October the 9th, 1622, which follow as he penned them. 

My most noble Lord, — I am half ashamed of myself that any man durst be 
so shameless as to lay upon me the least suspicion of corruption in that frugality 
of life, poverty of estate, and retnedness from all acquaintance or dependencies 
wherein I live ; but I have learnt one rule in the law, that knaves ever com- 
plain of generalities. And I long to be charged with any particular ; petitions 
are things that never brought to any man in my place either profit or honour, 
but infinite trouble and molestation. Three parts of four of them are poor 
men's, and bring not a penny to my secretaries. The last part are so slighted 
and disrespected by my orders, that they cannot be to my secretaries (whom I 
take to be honest men, and well provided for) worth their trouble or attendance. 
All petitions that I answer are of these kind. First, for ordinary writs to be 
signed by my hand ; secondly, for motions to be made in court ; thirdly, for to 
be placed in the paper of peremptories ; fourth, for license to beg ; fifth, for 
referring for insufficient answers ; sixth, for a day to dispatch references recom- 
mended from the king ; seventh, for reigling commissions to be dispatched to 
the country; eighth, for my letter to the next justices to compound braules ; 
ninth, for commissions of bankrupts, certiorari, especial stay of an extent until 
counsel be heard, &c. Let any man that understands himself be questioned by 
your lordship whether any of these poor things can raise a bribe or a fee worth 
the speaking of. I protest I am fain to allow £20. a year to a youth in my 
chamber, to take care of the poor men's petitions, the secretaries do so neglect 
them. 

In a while after thus to the King : 

May it please your most excellent Majesty to pardon the first boldness of this 
kind of interrupting your majesty. Although I do find by search those parti- 
cular charges of chamber orders, showed unto me by my most noble Lord 
Admiral, to be falsely laid and wilfully mistaken, as being either binding 
decrees or solemn orders pronounced in open court, and pursued only to pro- 
cesses of execution by these private directions ; yet do I find withal, and I 
have advisedly and with mature deliberation, upon my entering into this office, 
made many dispatches upon the petitions of the subjects to mine own great 
trouble, and to the ease of their partes many thousand pounds in the compass 
of this year. For that motion, which upon a petition will cost the party nothing 
if it be denied, nor above five shillings to the secretaries (unless the party play 
the fool and wilfully exceed that expected fee) where it is granted, being put 
into the mouth of a lawyer will cost the client, whether granted or denied, one 
piece at the least, and for the most part five, ten, or twenty pieces, is noto- 
riously known to all the world ; yet have I most willingly observed in all orders 
upon petitions, First, to order nothing in this kind without notice given to the 
adverse part and oath made thereof. Secondly, to reverse, correct, or alter to 
one syllable of any decree or order pronounced in court upon counsel heard on 
both sides. Thirdly, to alter no possession unless it be in pursuance of a former 
decree or order pronounced in open court upon counsel heard on both sides, or 
to save by a sequestration to indifferent hands, some bona peritura, which 
commonly be a tithe or a crop of hay or corn, which are ready to be carried 
away by force by unresponsal men, and will not stay for a decree in court. 
IS'ow I humbly crave your majesty's opinion whether I may go on this way, as 
ancient as the court, for easing your majesty's subjects with these cautions and 
limitations, the clamour of the lawyer and ignorance of some men, qui me per 
ornamenta feriunt notwithstanding. For although no party grieved doth or 
indeed can complain against these dispatches, and that in the corruptest times 
it was never heard that any bribes have been taken for answers upon petitions, 
yet what reason have I to overtoil myself in easing the purse of the subject, if it 
be objected as a crime against me, and be not a service acceptable to your 



NOTE Z Z. 

majesty and the realms 1 I have eased myself these three days in this kind, 
but am enforced to prevent their complaint by this humble representation unto 
your majesty. I most humbly, therefore, crave your majesty's directions, 
denied to none of your servants that desire them, to be signified unto me by the 
Lord Admiral at his lordship's best conveniency. 

The fair and familiar Conference which the Lord Treasurer had with the Lord 
Keeper after some Expostulations of his own, and the issue joined thereupon, 
at Whitehall, September 7, 1622. 

Object. 1. There is taken £40,000 for petitions in your house this year. 

Sol. Not much above the fortieth part of the money for all the dispatches of 
the Chancery, Star-Chamber, Councel-Table, Parliament, the great diocese of 
Lincoln, the jurisdiction of Westminster, and St. Martin's le Grand ; all which 
have resort to my house by petitions. 

Ob. 2. You have yourself a share in the money. 

Sol. Then let me have no share in God's kingdom ; it is such a baseness as 
never came within the compass of my thoughts. 

Ob. 3. It is commonly reported you pay to my Lord Admiral £1,000 per 
mensem. 

Sol. As true as the other. The means of my place will reach to no more 
than two months. 

Ob. 4. You never receive any petitions with your own hands, but turn them 
to your secretaries, who take double fees, one for receiving, and the other for 
delivering. 

Sol. Let the Cloisters at Westminster answer for me. I never to this day 
received any petition from my secretaries, which I had formerly delivered unto 
them with my own hands. This is a new fashion which my lord hath found in 
some other courts. 

Ob. 5. You sell days of hearing at higher rates than ever they were at. 

Sol. I never disposed of any since I came to this place, but leave them 
wholly to the six clerks and registers, to be set down in their antiquity. Unless 
his lordship means hearing of motions in the paper of peremptories, which I 
seldom deny upon any petition, and which are worth no money at all. 

Ob. 6. You usually reverse decrees upon petitions. 

Sol. I have never reversed, altered, explained, or endured a motion, or peti- 
tion, that touched upon a decree once pronounced ; but have sometimes made 
orders in pursuance of the same. 

Ob. 7. You have three doorkeepers, and are so locked up, that no man can 
have access unto you. 

Sol. I have no such officer in all my house, unless his lordship means the 
college porters j nor no locks at all, but his majesty's business, which I must 
respect above ceremonies and compliments. 

Ob. 8. You are cried out against over all the kingdom for an insufferable 
oppression and grievance. 

Sol. His lordship (if he have any friends) may hear of such a cry, and 
yet be pleased to mistake the person cried out against. 

Ob. 9. All the lords of the council cry out upon you, and you are a wretched 
and a friendless man, if no man acquaints you with it. 

Sol. I am a wretched man indeed if it be so. And your lordship fat the 
least) a very bold man if it be otherwise. 

Ob. 10. I will produce particular witnesses, and make all these charges 
good. 

Sol. I know your lordship cannot, and I do call upon you to do it, as sus- 
pecting all to be but your lordship's envy and malice to that service of the 
king's, and ease of his subjects, which God hath enabled me to accomplish, and 
perform in this troublesome office. J. L. C. S. 



NOTE Z Z. 

After time of James. 
Sir Matthew Hale. 

By his exact and impartial administration of justice, of which we have the 
following instances. He would never receive any private addresses or recom- 
mendations from the greatest persons in any matter in which justice was con- 
cerned. One of the first peers of England went once to his chamber, and told 
him, " That having a suit in law to be tried before him, he was then to acquaint 
him with it, that he might the better understand it when it should come to be 
heard in court." Upon which Sir Matthew interrupted him, and said, " He 
did not deal fairly with him to come to his chamber about such affairs, for he 
never received any information of causes but in open court, where both parties 
were to be heard alike." So he would not suffer him to go on. Whereupon 
his grace (for he was a duke) went away not a little dissatisfied, and com- 
plained of it to the king as a rudeness that was not to be endured. But his 
majesty bid him content himself that he was no worse used ;" and said he 
verily believed he would have used himself no better if he had gone to solicit 
him in any of his own causes. Another passage fell out in one of his circuits, 
which was somewhat censured as an affectation of unreasonable strictness, but 
it flowed from his exactness to the rules he had set himself. A gentleman had 
sent him a buck for his table that had a trial at the assizes. So when he heard 
his name, he asked "If he was not the same person who had sent him the 
venison?' and finding he was the same, he told him he could not suffer the 
trial to go on till he had paid him for his buck. To which the gentleman 
answered, *« That he never sold his venison, and that he had done nothing to 
him which he did not do to every judge that had gone the circuit," which was 
confirmed by several gentlemen then present : but all would not do ; for the 
Lord Chief Baron had learned from Solomon, " that a gift perverteth the ways 
of judgment," and therefore he would not suffer the trial to go on till he had 
paid for the present, upon which the gentleman withdrew the record. And at 
Salisbury, the dean and chapter having, according to custom, presented him 
with six sugar-loaves in his circuit, he made his servants pay for the sugar 
before he would try their cause. 

Were Bacon's judgments influenced by the presents 1 

That these solicitations and presents had not any influence upon the judg- 
ments of the Chancellor appears from many reasons. 

1. During the violence and virulence of the charges not a word was attempted 
to be said of his having ever decided unjustly. 

2. In most of the cases the presents were long after the decrees. 

3. In many of the cases the presents were made by both parties. 

4. When the present was made by only one of the suitors, the judgment has 
been against him, and in Aubrey's case, Sir R. Phillips, the chairman of the 
committee said, "Sir George Hastings, pitying Aubrey's case, did give in a 
box £100 to the Lord Chancellor in those terms or the like, ' That it was to 
help Aubrey in his cause.' Notwithstanding, not long after, a very prejudicial 
and murthering order was made against Aubrey in his cause." 

5. No doubt of the integrity of his judgments seems to have been entertained 
by his cotemporaries. 

Ben Jonson. 

Ben Jonson died about 1630. "My conceit of this person was never 
increased towards him by his place or honors ; but I have and do reverence him 
for the greatness that was only proper to himself, in that he seemed to me ever 
by his works one of the greatest men, and most worthy of admiration, that had 
been in many ages. In his adversity I ever prayed that God would give him 
strength ; for greatness he could not want. Neither could I condole in a word 
or syllable for him, as knowing no accident could do harm to virtue, but rather 
help to make it manifest." 

vol.. xv. 15 



NOTE Z Z. 



Fuller. 



Such as condemn him for pride, in his place with the fifth part of his parts, 
had been ten times prouder themselves. He had been a better master if he had 
been a worse, being too bountiful to his servants, and either too confident of 
their honesty, or too conniving at their falsehood. The story is told to his 
advantage, that he had two servants, one in all causes patron to the plaintiff 
(whom his charity presumed always injured) the other to the defendant (pitying 
him as compelled to law), but taking bribes of both, with this condition, to 
restore the money received if the cause went against them. Their lord, igno- 
rant thereof, always did impartial justice ; whilst his men (making people pay 
for what was given them) by compact shared the money betwixt them, which 
cost their master the loss of his office. 

Bushel. — Rushworth. 

He was over indulgent to his servants, and connived at their takings, and their 
ways betrayed him to that error : they were profuse and expensive, and had at 
their command whatever he was master of. The gifts taken were for the most 
part for interlocutory orders : his decrees were generally made with so much 
equity, that though gifts rendered him suspected for injustice, yet never any 
decree made by him was reversed as unjust, as it has been observed by some 
who were well skilled in our laws. — Rushworth's Collection, vol. i. 26. 

Aubrey. 

His favourites took bribes, but his lordship always gave judgment secundum 
aequum et bonum. His decrees in Chancery stand firm ; there are fewer of his 
decrees reversed than of any other Chancellor. 

Lloyd. 

He reflected upon himself, when he said to his servants as they rose to him 
in the hall, " Your rise hath been my fall." Though, indeed, he rather 
trusted to their honesty, than connived at their falsehood, yet he did impartial 
justice commonly to both parties, when one servant was in fee with the plaintiff, 
and the other with the defendant. 

It seems scarcely possible to suppose that if the judgments of the Chancellor 
had been influenced by the solicitations and presents, the intimacy between him 
and the King and Buckingham would have continued. The idea of his judg- 
ments being tainted never enter the mind of Lord Bacon. This appears from 
various passages in his works. 

In his letter to Buckingham, written as soon as the charge was made, he says : 

To the Marquis of Buckingham, (a) 

My very good Lord, — Your lordship spoke of purgatory. I am now in it ; 
but my mind is in a calm ; for my fortune is not my felicity. I know I have 
clean hands, and a clean heart; and, I hope, a clean house for friends or ser- 
vants. But Job himself, or whosoever was the justest judge, by such hunting 
for matters against him, as hath been used against me, may for a time seem 
foul, especially in a time when greatness is the mark, and accusation is the 
game. And if this be to be a Chancellor, I think, if the great seal lay upon 
Hounslow Heath, nobody would take it up. But the King and your lordship 
will, I hope, put an end to these my straits one way or other. And in troth 
that which I fear most is, lest continual attendance and business, together with 
these cares, and want of time to do my weak body right this spring by diet and 
physic, will cast me down ; and that it will be thought feigning, or fainting. 
But I hope in God I shall hold out. God prosper you. 

(a) This letter seems to have been written soon after Lord St. Alban began 
to be accused of abuses in his office of Chancellor. 




NOTE Z Z. 

And in his letter of March 25, to the King, he says : And for the briberies 
and gifts wherewith I am charged, when the books of hearts shall be opened, I 
hope I shall not be found to have the troubled fountain of a corrupt heart, in a 
depraved habit of taking rewards to pervert justice ; howsoever I may be frail, 
and partake of the abuses of the times. 

When the Chancellor saw the King in April, during the recess, he had pre- 
pared notes of his intended communication to the King. The following are the 
notes : 

Memoranda of what the Lord Chancellor intended to deliver to the King, 
April 16, 1621, upon his first access to his Majesty after his troubles. 

If your majesty will graciously give me the hearing, I will open my heart 
unto you, both touching my fault and fortune. For the former of these, I shall 
deal ingenuously with your majesty, without seeking fig-leaves or subterfuges. 
There be three degrees, or cases, as I conceive, of gifts and rewards given to a 
judge : the first is of bargain, contract, or promise of reward, pendente lite. 
And this is properly called venalis sententia, or baratria, or corruptelcs munerum. 
And of this my heart tells me I am innocent ; that I had no bribe or reward in 
my eye or thought, when I pronounced any sentence or order. The second is a 
neglect in the judge to inform himself whether the cause be fully at an end or 
no, what time he receives the gift, but takes it upon the credit of the party, that 
all is done; or otherwise omits to inquire. And the third is, when it is 
received sine fraude, after the cause ended ; which, it seems by the opinion of 
the civilians, is no offence. Look into the case of simony, &c. 

Now, if I might see the particulars of my charge, I should deal plainly with 
your majesty s in whether of these degrees every particular case falls. But for 
the first of them, I take myself to be as innocent as any born upon St. Inno- 
cents' day, in my heart. Tor the second, I doubt, in some particulars I may 
be faulty. And for the last, I conceived it to be no fault ; but therein I desire 
to be better informed, that I may be twice penitent, once for the fact, and again 
for the error. For I had rather be a briber than a defender of bribes. 

I must likewise confess to your majesty, that at new-years tides, and likewise 
at my first coming in, which was, as it were my wedding, I did not so precisely, 
as perhaps I ought, examine whether those that presented me had causes before 
me, yea or no. And this is simply all that I can say for the present, concerning 
my charge, until I may receive it more particularly. And all this while, I do 
not fly to that, as to say that these things are vitia temporis, and not vitia 
hominis. 

And in another letter to Buckingham he says : I perceive by some speech, 
that passed between your lordship and Mr. Meautys, that some wretched 
detractor hath told you that it were strange I should be in debt ; for that I 
could not but have received an hundred thousand pounds gifts since I had the 
seal, which is an abominable falsehood. Such tales as these made St. James 
say, that the tongue is a fire, and itself fired from hell, whither when these 
tongues shall return, they will beg a drop of water to cool them. I praise God 
for it, I never took penny for any benefice or ecclesiastical living ; I never took 
penny for releasing any thing I stopped at the seal ; I never took penny for any 
commission, or things of that nature ; I never shared with any servant for any 
second or inferior profit. My offences I have myself recorded, wherein I 
studied, as a good confessant, guiltiness, and not excuse ; and therefore I hope 
it leaves me fair to the king's grace, and will turn many men's hearts to me. 

The state of Lord Bacon's mind may also be discovered by his own rule, the 
sudden expressions which were made by him when the charge was made. 

In the Advancement of Learning, he says, that the modes by which words 
give us an insight into character are, when they are sudden, " vino tortus et 
ira." So, when speaking of the use of Mechanical History, he says, "As a 
man's disposition is never well known till he be crossed, nor Proteus ever 
changed shapes till he was straitened and held fast ; so the passages and varia- 
tions of nature cannot appear so fully in the liberty of nature, as in the trials 
and vexations of art." 



BOTE 2. Z. 

Upon being told that it was time to look about him, he said, " I do not look 
about me ; I look above me." 

Upon his servants rising on his entrance, soon after the accusation, " Sit 
down," he said, " your rise has been my fall." 

Letter from Sir Kenelm Digby to M. de Fermat, published at the end of 
Fermat's Opera Mathematica, 1769. 

Extrait d'un lettre de Mons. le Chevalier Digby a M. de Fermat. 

Et eomme vous y parlez de notre Chancellier Bacon, cela me fit souvenir 
d'un autre beau mot qu'il dit en ma presence une fois a peu Mons. le Due de 
Buckingham. C'etoit au commencement de ses malheurs quand l'assemblee 
des etats, que nous appellons le parlement, entrepot de le miner, ce quelle fit 
en suite, ce jour la il en eut la premiere alarme. J'etois avec le due ayant 
disne avec lui, le Chancellier suivint, et l'entretint de l'accusation qu'un de 
ceux de la chambre basse avoit presentee contre lui, et il supplia le due 
d'employer son credit aupres du roi pour le maintenir toujours dans son esprit. 
Le due lui repondit, qu'il etoit si bien avec le roi leur maitre qu'il n'etoit pas 
besoin de lui rendre de bons offices aupres de sa majeste, ce qu'il disont, non 
pas pour le refuser, car il aimoit beaucoup, mais pour lui faire plus d'honneur. 
Le Chancelier lui repondit de tres bonne grace, " Qu'en il croyoit etre parfaite- 
ment bien dans 1'esprit de son maitre, mais aussi qu'il avoit toujours remarque 
que pour si grand que soit un feu, et pour si fortement qu'il brule de lui meme, 
il ne laissera pourtant pas de bruler mieux, et d'etre plus beau et plus clair si 
on le suffle comme il faut." 

Assuming that it was customary for the suitors to solicit and to make presents 
to the judges out of court, the observations made by Mr. Butler with respect to 
this custom in Fiance, maj', therefore, as it seems, be applied to the custom in 
England : " But it all amounted to nothing. To all their solicitations the 
judges listened with equal external reverence and internal indifference ; and they 
availed themselves of the first moment when it could be done with decency, to 
bow the parties respectfully out of the room." 



NOTE AAA. 

The Advancement of Learning. 

The Advancement of Learning was published in the year 1605. The fol- 
lowing is a copy of the title page : The Tvvoo Bookes of Francis Bacon. Of the 
proficience and aduancement of Learning, diuine and humane. To the King. 
At London, printed for Henry Tomes, and are to be sould at his shop at Graies 
Inne Gate in Holborne. 1605. It is a small thin quarto of 119 pages, double 
paged, that is, one page relates to two sides, so that there are according to the 
modern mode of paging, 238 pages. The subjects are distinguished by capitals 
and italics introduced into the text, with a few marginal notes in Latin. 

Of this work he sent copies to the Earl of Northampton, to present the book 
to the King ; to Sir Thomas Bodley ; to Lord Chancellor Egerton ; to the Earl 
of Salisbury ; to the Lord Treasurer Buckhurst ; to Mr. Matthews. The fol- 
lowing are copies of the several presentation letters : 

Sir Francis Bacon, of the like Argument, to the Earl of Northampton, with 
request to present the book to his Majesty. 

It may please your good Lordship, — Having finished a work touching the 
Advancement of Learning, and dedicated the same to his sacred majesty, whom 
I dare avouch (if the records of time err not) to be the learnededst king that 
hath reigned ; I was desirous in a kind of congruity, to present it by the 
learnedest counsellor in this kingdom, to the end, that so good an argument, 
lightening upon so bad an author, might receive some reparation by the hands 



NOTE AAA. 

into which, and by which it should be delivered. And therefore I make it my 
humble suit to your lordship to present this mean, but well meant writing to his 
majesty, and with it my humble and zealous duty ; and also my like humble 
request of pardon, if I have too often taken his name in vain, not only in the 
dedication, but in the voucher of the authority of his speeches and writings. 
And so I remain, &c. 

Sir Francis Bacon to Sir Thomas Bodley, upon sending him his Book of the 
Advancement of Learning. 

Sir, — I think no man may more truly say with the psalm, " multum incola 
fuit anima mea." For I do confess, since I was of any understanding, my 
mind hath in effect been absent from that I have done, and in absence errors 
are committed, which I do willingty acknowledge ; and amongst the rest, this 
great one that led the rest ; that knowing myself by inward calling to be fitter 
to hold a book than to play a part, I have led my life in civil causes, for which 
I was not very fit by nature, and more unfit by the preoccupation of my mind. 
Therefore, calling myself home, I have now for a time enjoyed myself, where 
likewise I desire to make the world partaker ; my labours (if so I may term 
that which was the comfort of my other labours) I have dedicated to the king, 
desirous if there be any good in them, it may be as fat of a sacrifice incensed to 
his honour ; and the second copy I have sent unto you, not only in good affec- 
tion, but in a kind of congruity, in regard of your great and rare desert of 
learning : for books are the shrines where the saint is, or is believed to be. And 
you having built an ark, to save learning from deluge, deserve, in propriety, any 
new instrument or engine, whereby learning should be improved or advanced. 
So, &c. 

A Letter of the like Argument to the Lord Chancellor. 

May it please your good Lordship, — I humbly present your lordship with a 
work, wherein as you have much commandment over the author, so your lord- 
ship hath also great interest in the argument. For to speak without flattery, 
few have like use of learning, or like judgment in learning, as I have observed 
in your lordship. And again, your lordship hath been a great planter of learn- 
ing, not only in those places in the church which have been in your own gift, 
but also in your commendatory vote, no man hath more constantly held " detur 
digniori," and therefore both your lordship is beholden to learning, and learning 
beholden to you. Which maketh me presume, with good assurance, that your 
lordship will accept well of these my labours, the rather because your lordship 
in private speech hath often begun to me, in expressing your admiration of his 
majesty's learning, to whom I have dedicated this work ; and whose virtue and 
perfection in that kind did chiefly move me to a work of this nature. And so 
with signification of my most humble duty and affection towards your lordship, 
I remain, &c. 

Sir Francis Bacon to the Earl of Salisbury, upon sending him one of his Books 
of Advancement of Learning. 

It may please your good Lordship, — I present your lordship with a work of 
my vacant time, which if it had been more, the work had been better. It 
appertaineth to your lordship (besides my particular respects) in some propriety, 
in regard you are a great governor in a province of learning, and (that which is 
more) you have added to your place affection towards learning, and to your 
affection judgment, of which the last I could be content were (for the time) 
less, that you might the less exquisitely censure that which I offer to you. But 
sure I am, the argument is good, if it had lighted upon a good author ; but I 
shall content myself to awake better spirits, like a bellringer which is first up, 
to call others to church. So, with my humble desire of your lordship's good 
acceptation, I remain. 



NOTE A A A, 



Sir Francis Bacon to the Lord Treasurer Buckhurst, (a) upon the same occasion, 
of sending his book of Advancement of Learning. 
May it please your good Lordship, — I have finished a work touching the 
Advancement or setting forward of Learning, which I have dedicated to his 
majesty, the most learned of a sovereign, or temporal prince, that time hath 
known. And upon reason not unlike, I humbly present one of the books to 
your lordship, not only as a chancellor of an university, but as one that was 
excellently bred in all learning, which I have ever noted to shine in all your 
speeches and behaviours. And therefore your lordship will yield a gracious 
aspect to your first love, and take pleasure in the adorning of that wherewith 
yourself are so much adorned. And so humbly desiring your favourable accep- 
tation thereof, with signification of my humble duty, I remain. 

To Mr. Matthew. 

Sir, — I perceive you have some time when you can be content to think of 
your friends ; from whom since you have borrowed yourself, you do well, not 
paying the principal, to send the interest at six months. The relation which 
here I send you inclosed, carries the truth of that which is public ; and though 
my little leisure might have required a briefer, yet the matter would have 
endured and asked a larger. 

1 have now at last taught that child to go, at the swaddling whereof you were. 
My work touching the proficiency and advancement of learning, I have put 
into two books ; whereof the former, which you saw, I cannot but account 
as a page to the latter. I have now published them both ; whereof I thought 
it a small adventure to send you a copy, who have more right to it than any 
man, except Bishop Andrews, who was my inquisitor. 

The death of the late great judge concerned not me, because the other was 
not removed. I write this in answer to your good wishes ; which I return not 
as flowers of Florence, but as you mean them ; whom I conceive place cannot 
alter, no more than time shall me, except it be for the better. 1605. 

Some short time after the publication of this work, probably about the year 
1608, Sir Francis Bacon was desirous that the Advancement of Learning should 
be translated into Latin ; and, for this purpose, he applied to Dr. Playfer, the 
Margaret professor of divinity in the university of Cambridge. 

Sir Francis Bacon, his Letter of request to Doctor Playfer, to translate the 
book of Advancement of Learning into Latin. 

Mr. Doctor Playfer, — A great desire will take a small occasion to hope, and 
put in trial that which is desired. It pleased you, a good while since, to 
express unto me the good liking which you conceive of my book, of the 
Advancement of Learning, and that more significantly (as it seemed to me) than 
out of courtesy, or civil respect. Myself, as I then took contentment in your 
approbation thereof, so I should esteem and acknowledge, not only my content- 
ment increased, but my labours advanced, if I might obtain your help in that 
nature which I desire. Wherein, before I set down in plain terms my request 
unto you, I will open myself, what it was which I chiefly sought, and pro- 
pounded to myself in that work, that you may perceive that which I now desire 
to be pursuant thereupon, if I do not err. (For any judgment that a man 
maketh of his own doings, had need be spoken with a " Si nunquam fallit 
imago,") I have this opinion, that if I had sought my own commendation, it had 
been a much fitter course for me to have done as gardeners use to do, by taking 
their seeds and slips, and rearing them first into plants, and so uttering them in 
pots, when they are in flower, and in their best state. But forasmuch as my 
end was merit of the state of learning, to my power, and not glory ; and because 
my purpose was rather to excite other men's wits, than to magnify my own, I 

(a) Chancellor of Oxford, Lord Treasurer, Earl of Dorset, celebrated as a 
poet, an orator, and a writer. 



NOTE AAA. 

was desirous to prevent the incertainness of my own life and times, by uttering 
rather seeds than plants ; nay, and farther, as the proverb is, by sowing with 
the basket than with the hand. Wherefore, since I have only taken upon me to 
ring a bell, to call other wits together (which is the meanest office), it cannot but 
be consonant to my desire to have that bell heard as far as can be. And since 
that they are but sparks, which can work but upon matter prepared, I have the 
more reason to wish that those sparks may fly abroad, that they may the better find, 
and light upon those minds and spirits which are apt to be kindled. And there- 
fore, the privateness of the language considered wherein it is written excluding 
so many readers fas on the other side, the obscurity of the argument, in many 
parts of it, excludeth many others ;) I must account it a second birth of that 
work, if it might be translated into Latin, without manifest loss of the sense and 
matter. For this purpose, I could not represent to myself any man into whose 
hands I do more earnestly desire that work should fall than yourself; for by 
that I have heard and read, I know no man a greater master in commanding 
words to serve matter. Nevertheless I am not ignorant of the worth of your 
labours, whether such as your place and profession imposeth on you, or such as 
your own virtue may, upon your voluntary election, take in hand. But I can 
lay before you no other persuasions, than either the work itself may affect you 
with, or the honour of his majesty, to whom it is dedicated, or your particular 
inclination to myself; who, as I never took so much comfort in any labours of 
my own, so I shall never acknowledge myself more obliged in any thing to the 
labour of another, than in that which shall assist this. Which your labour, if 
I can by my place, profession, means, friends, travel, work, deed, requite unto 
you, I shall esteem myself so straitly bound thereunto, as I shall be ever most 
ready both to take and seek occasion of thankfulness. So leaving it neverthe- 
less, salvd amicitid, as reason is to your good liking, I remain. 

Dr. Playfer's wish to comply with this request, and his failure is thus stated 
by Archbishop Tenison, (a) " The Doctor was willing to serve so excellent a 
person, and so worthy a design, and within a while sent him a specimen of a 
Latin translation. But men generally come short of themselves when they 
strive to outdo themselves ; they put a force upon their natural genius, and, by 
straining of it, crack and disable it : and so it seems it happened to that worthy 
and elegant man. Upon this great occasion he would be over accurate ; and 
he sent a specimen of such superfine Latinity, that the Lord Bacon did not 
encourage him to labour further in that work, in the penning of which, he 
desired not so much neat and polite, as clear, masculine, and apt expression." 

This was probably in 1606 or 1607, for Dr. Playfer's death is thus recorded 
by Bishop Hackett, in his life of Archbishop Williams : " On Candlemas-day, 
anno 1608, his reverend friend Dr. Playfer departed out of this world, in the 
forty-sixth year of his life, in his flower and prime ; whose greatest well-wishers 
did not wish him alive again, because his rarely beautified wits, with which he 
had even enchanted his hearers in so many estivat commencements, were now 
more and more distempered. Yet Mr. Williams wept over him, and exceeded 
in grief, as if a child had lost his father. The University making preparation 
for the solemn funeral of so great an ornament to it, the Vice Chancellor that 
then was, Dr. Jeggon, possessed the pulpit to preach, and Mr. Williams was 
required to be the orator, to give him a farewell of due praise in the chapel of 
St. John's College. He pleaded the truth, that his sorrow would not grant him 
such a dispassionate mind, as was fit to compose a panegyric, and that in the 
space of three days, and for such a man as Dr. Playfer. And with this excuse 
he held off, till Dr. Clayton set upon it to enforce the task on him that could 
best discharge it, threatened him with expulsion, if he refused that service to 
which his superiors had allotted him. An hard condition, and such as might 
have been disputed, as long after I heard him argue upon it. But then he 
yielded, whether fair means or foul means overcame him I know not: but I 
think rather love than fear got the upper hand of grief. And when his turn 

(a) Baconiana, 25. 



NOTE AAA. 

came to speak upon the day of the obsequies, O what a tunable music he made 
between his rhetoric and his tears ! for both flowed together. How curious 
were his apostrophes ! how moving were his passions ! how winning his pro- 
nunciation ! Many pauses he was compelled to make by the applause and 
humming of the swarms about him in the close of his periods. When he bad 
done, and the assembly brake up, it was in every mouth, that Playfer's elo- 
quence was not dead with him while this orator was alive. Let me trouble this 
narrative with a small interjection. I was myself in the throng among those 
that heard this oration, newly admitted into Trinity College, that being the 
second day wherein I wore my purple gown. This being the first exercise that 
I heard in Cambridge in the Latin tongue, I thought it was a city paved all 
with emeralds, and that such learning and such silver elocution was common to 
them all." 

I find the following notice of this work by Lord Bacon. On the 12th of 
October, 1620, in a letter to the King, presenting the Novum Organum to his 
majesty, Lord Bacon says, " I hear my former book of the Advancement of 
Learning, is well tasted in the universities here, and the English colleges 
abroad ; and this is the same argument sunk deeper." And it is mentioned in 
the following letter : 

To Mr. Mathew. 

Sir, — Two letters of mine are now already walking towards you ; but so that 
we might meet, it were no matter though our letters should lose their way. I 
make a shift in the mean time to be glad of your approaches, and would be 
more glad to be an agent for your presence, who have been a patient for your 
absence. If your body by indisposition make you acknowledge the healthful 
air of your native country, much more do I assure myself that you continue to 
have your mind no way estranged. And as my trust with the state is above 
suspicion, so my knowledge, both of your loyalty and honest nature, will ever 
make me show myself your faithful friend, without scruple : you have reason to 
commend that gentleman to me by whom, you sent your last, although his 
having travelled so long amongst the sadder nations of the world make him 
much the less easy upon small acquaintance to be understood. I have sent you 
some copies of my book of the Advancement, which you desired, and a little 
work of my recreation, which you desired not. My Instauralion I reserve for 
our conference ; it sleeps not. These works of the alphabet are in my opinion 
of less use to you where you are now, than at Paris ; and therefore I conceived 
that you had sent me a kind of tacit countermand of your former request. But 
in regard that some friends of yours have still insisted here, I send them to you; 
and for my part, I value your own reading more than your publishing them to 
others. Thus, in extreme haste, I have scribbled to you I know not what, 
which therefore is the less affected, and for that very reason will not be esteemed 
the less by you. 

Different Editions. 

This edition of 1605 was the only edition published during the life of Lord 
Bacon, who died in 1626. 

An edition in octavo was published in 1629. The following is a copy of the 
title page : The Two Bookes of Fancis Bacon. Of the Prqficience and aduance- 
ment of Learning, Divine, and Hvman. To the King. London: printed for 
William Washington, and are to be sold at his shop in S. Dunstanes Church- 
yard. 1629. 

In the year 1633, there was another edition of the same size. The following 
is a copy of the title page : The Two Bookes of Sir Francis Bacon, of the Pro- 
ficience and Advancement of Leurning Divine and Hvmane. To the King. 
Oxford, printed by I. L. Printer to the Vniversity, for Thomas Huggins. 1633. 
With permission of B. Fisher. 

I once thought that the edition of 1633 was either a fac-simile, or part of the 
remaining copies of 1629, as it consists of the same pages (335), and very 
nearly resembling each other. But, upon examining pages 334 and 335, it 



NOTE A A A. 

will be seen that, although they consist of the same words, the spelling of the 
word " be" is in various places different. It probably is the same in other 
pages. 

In 1808 another edition in octavo was published. It was edited by Mr. 
Mallet, a great admirer of Lord Bacon. I know him well, and think of him 
with affection and respect. He was cut off in his prime. The following is a 
copy of the title page : The Two Books of Francis Bacon. Of the Projicience 
and Advancement of Learning, Divine and Human. To the King. London: 
printed by J. M'Creery,for T. Payne, Pali Mall. Mallet says, that his edition 
is corrected from the original edition of 1605 : numerous errors having crept 
into many of the later editions, especially in the Latin quotations. 

In the year 1825, another edition in octavo was published. The following is 
the title page : The Two Books of Francis Lord Verulam. Of the P rofcience 
and Advancement of Learning, Divine and Human. To the King. London. 
William Pickering, m.dccc.xxv. I wrote the preface to this edition. Some 
person was procured by the publisher to translate, and very badly has he trans- 
lated, the various Latin quotations in different parts of the volume. 

There is another 12mo. edition, a very neat pocket volume. 

Of the Profcience and Advancement of Learning, Divine and Human. By 
Francis Lord Bacon. London : printed and published by J. F. Dove, St. John's 
Square. 1828. 



NOTE BBB. 

Novum Organum. 

( Rawley. 

1. Observations by different authors. <Tennison. 

2. Different editions. (Montagu. 

3. Translations. 

4. Tracts relating to. 

5. Nature of the work. 

6. Miscellaneous. 

Observations by different authors. 

Rawley's Observations upon Novum Organum. 

Beu Jonson says, " I have ever observed it to have been the office of a wise 
patriot, among the greatest affairs of the state, to take care of the commonwealth 
of learning. For schools, they are the seminaries of state, and nothing is 
worthier the study of a statesman, than that part of the republic which we call 
the Advancement of Letters. Witness the care of Julius Caesar, who in the 
heat of the civil war writ his book of Analogy, and dedicated them to Tully. 
This made the late Lord St. Albans entitle his work Novum Organum, which, 
though by the most of superficial men, who cannot get beyond the title of nomi- 
nals, it is a work not penetrated or understood ; it really openeth all defects of 
learning whatsoever, and is a book 

Qui longum noto scriptori proroget czvum. 

Dr. Rawley, in his life of Lord Bacon, says, " I have been induced to think, 
that if there were a beam of knowledge derived from God upon any man in 
these modern times, it was upon him : for though he was a great reader of 
books, yet he had not his knowledge from books, but from some grounds and 
notions from within himself; which notwithstanding he vented with great 
caution and circumspection. His book of Instauratione Magna (which in his 
own account was the chiefest of his works,) was no slight imagination, or fancy 
of his brain, but a settled and concocted notion, the production of many years 
labour and travel. I myself have seen at the least twelve copies of the Instau- 
ration, revised year by year one after another, and every year altered and 

vor.. xv. 16 



NOTF. B B B. 

amended in the frame thereof, till at last it came to that model in which it was 
committed to the press, as many living creatures do lick their young ones, till 
they bring them to their strength of limbs. 

Tennyson's Observations upon Novum Organum. 

The second part of his Great Instauration (and so considerable a part of it, 
that the name of the whole is given to it) is his Novum Organum Scientiarum, 
written by himself in the Latin tongue, and printed also most beautifully and 
correctly in folio, at London, (a) This work he dedicated to King James, with 
the following excuse ; that if he had stolen any time for the composure of it 
from his majesty's other affairs, he had made some sort of restitution by doing 
honour to his name and his reign. The King wrote to him, then Chancellor, a 
letter of thanks with his own hand ; (b) and this was the first part of it : " My 
Lord, I have received your letter and your book, than the which you could not 
have sent a more acceptable present to me. How thankful I am for it, cannot 
better be expressed by me, than by a firm resolution I have taken ; first, to read 
it through with care and attention, though I should steal some hours from my 
sleep, having, otherwise, as little spare time to read it as you had to write it ; 
and then to use the liberty of a true friend, in not sparing to ask you the question 
in any point, whereof I stand in doubt (nam ejus est expiicare, cujus est condere) ; 
as, on the other part, I will willingly give a due commendation to such places, 
as in my opinion, shall deserve it. In the mean time, I can with comfort 
assure you, that you could not have made choice of a subject, more befitting 
your place, and your universal and methodical knowledge." 

Three copies of this Organum were sent by the Lord Bacon to Sir Henry 
Wotton, one who took a pride (as himself saith) in a certain congeniality with 
his lordship's studies. And how very much he valued the present, we may 
learn from his own words : " Your lordship (said he)(c) hath done a great and 
ever-living benefit to all the children of nature, and to nature herself in her 
uttermost extent of latitude ; who, never before, had so noble, nor so true an 
interpreter, or (as I am readier to style your lordship) never so inward a secre- 
tary of her cabinet. But of your work (which came but this week to my hands) 
I shall find occasion to speak more hereafter ; having yet read only the first 
book thereof, and a few aphorisms of the second. For it is not a banquet that 
men may superficially taste, and put up the rest in their pockets ; but, in truth, 
a solid feast, which requireth due mastication. Therefore, when I have once 
myself perused the whole, I determine to have it read, piece by piece, at certain 
hours, in my domestic college, as an ancient author; fori have learned thus 
much by it already, that we are extremely mistaken in the computation of 
antiquity, by searching it backwards ; because, indeed, the first times were the 
youngest ; especially in points of natural discovery and experience. 

This Novum Organum containeth in it, instructions concerning a better and 
more perfect use of reason in our inquisitions after things. And therefore the 
second title which he gave it was, Directions concerning Interpretations of 
Nature. And by this art he designed a logic more useful than the vulgar, and 
an Organum apter to help the intellectual powers than that of Aristotle. For he 
proposed here, not so much the invention of arguments as of arts ; and in 
demonstration, he used induction, more than contentious syllogism ; and in his 
induction, he did not straightway proceed from a few particular sensible notions 
to the most general of all ; but raised axioms by degrees, designing the most 
general notions for the last place, and insisting on such of them as are not 
merely notional, but coming from nature, do also lead to her. 

This book containeth three parts : the Preface ; the Distribution of the 
Work of the Great Instauration ; Aphorisms, guiding to the interpretation 
nature. 

(a) 1620, and in second part of Resuscitatio part of this Org. is published in 
an English version. 

(b) Dated October 16, 1620. (c) Wotton's Remains, 298. 



N O r E B B B . 

The Preface cousidereth the present unhappy state of learning, together with 
counsels and advices to advance and improve it. To this preface, therefore, 
are to be reduced the Indicia, and the Proem in Gruter,(a) concerning the inter- 
pretation of nature ; the first book de Augmentis Scientiarum, which treateth 
generally of their dignity and advancement, (ft) 

To the Distribution belongeth that Latin fragment in Gruter, (c) called the 
Delineation and Argument of the second part of the Instauration. (d) 

In the bringing this labour to maturity, he used great and deliberate care ; 
insomuch that Dr. Rawley saith, he had seen twelve copies of it revised year by 
year, one after another, and every year altered and amended in the frame 
thereof, till at last it came to the model in which it was committed to the press. 
It was like a mighty pyramid, long in its erection, and it will probably be like 
to it in its continuance. Now he received fiom many parts beyond the seas 
testimonies touching this work, such as beyond which he could not (he saith) 
expect at the first, in so abstruse an argument; yet, nevertheless (he saith 
again) he had just cause to doubt that it flew too high over men's heads. He 
purposed, therefore (though he broke the order of time) to draw it down to the 
sense by some patterns of natural story and inquisition. 

Montagu's Preface. 

In the year 1605 Lord Bacon, in the Advancement of Learning, divided 
knowledge respecting the Mind of Man into the understanding and the will. 
Knowledge respecting the understanding he divided into 

Invention, 
Judgment, 
Memory, 
Tradition. 

** Man's labour is to invent that which is sought or propounded ; or to judge 
that which is invented ; or to retain that which is judged ; or to deliver over 
that which is retained. So as the arts must be four ; art of inquiry or inven- 
tion ; art of examination or judgment ; art of custody or memory ; and art of 
elocution or tradition." 

Under the head of Invention, after having explained the deficience of the 
art of Invention, " which/' he says, " seemeth to me to be such a deficience 
as if, in the making of an inventory touching the estate of a defunct, it should 
be set down, ' of ready money nothing :' for as money will fetch all other com- 
modities, so this knowledge is that which should purchase all the rest. And 
like as the West Indies had never been discovered, if the use of the mariner's 
needle had not been first discovered, though the one be vast regions and the 
other a small motion ; so it cannot be found strange if sciences be no farther 
discovered, if the art itself of invention and discovery hath been passed over." 

He then adds, " This part of invention, concerning the invention of sciences, 
I purpose, if God give me leave, hereafter to propound, having digested it into 
two parts ; whereof the one I term ' Experientia Literata,' and the other 
' Interpretatio Naturae:' the former being but a degree and rudiment of the 
latter. But I will not dwell too long, nor speak too great upon a promise." 

The Novum Organum was published, imperfect and incomplete, in the year 
1620, when Lord Bacon was Chancellor. The reasons for the publication at 
that period are stated in his letter to the King : " And the reason why I have 
published it now, specially, being unperfect, is, tospeak plainly, because I number 
my days, and would have it saved. There is another reason of my so doing, 
which is to try whether I can get help in one intended part of this work, 



(a) Script. 285, 479. 

(6) Referred by Tennison to Preface of Novum Organum. 

(c) Inter Script. 293. 

(d) Referred by Tennison to the second part of Novum Organum. 



NOTE BBS. 

namely, the compiling of a natural and experimental history, which must be 
the main foundation of a true and active philosophy." Such are the causes 
assigned by Lord Bacon, each deserving a separate consideration. 

The first of these two reasons is, " because I number my days, and would 
have it saved." The meaning of this cannot be mistaken. Bacon was born in 
the year 1560. His health was always delicate. Etiam, he says, nonnihil 
hominibus spei fieri putamus ab exemplo nostro proprio ; neque jactantiae causa 
hoc dicimus, sed quod utile dictu sit. Si qui diffidant, me videant, hominem 
inter homines aetatis meae civilibus negotiis occupatissimum, nee firma admodum 
valetudine (quod magnum habet temporis dispendium), atque in hac re plane 
protopirum, et vestigia nullius secutum, neque haac ipsa cum ullo mortalium 
communicantem ; et tamen veram viam constanter ingressum, et ingenium 
rebus submittentem, haec ipsa aliquatenus (ut existimamus) provexisse. 

In the year 1617, when he was fifty-seven years of age, the great seals were 
offered to him. Unmindful of the feebleness of his constitution; unmindful of 
his love of contemplation, and that genius is rarely prompt in action, or con- 
sistent in general conduct : unmindful of his own words, " I ever bore a mind 
to serve his majesty in some middle place that I could discharge, not as a man 
born under Sol, that loves honour; nor under Jupiter, that loves business ; for 
the contemplative planet carries me away wholly." Unmindful of his own 
words, " Men in great place are thrice servants : servants of the sovereign in 
state ; servants of fame ; and servants of business : so as they have no freedom 
neither in their persons, nor in their actions, nor in their times. Power they 
seek, and lose liberty : they seek power over others, and lose power over them- 
selves." Unmindful of his admonition, " Accustom your mind to judge of the 
proportion or value of things, and do that substantially and not superficially ; 
for if you observe well, you shall find the logical part of some men's minds 
good, but the mathematical part nothing worth : that is, they can judge well of 
the mode of attaining the end, but ill of the value of the end itself; and hence 
some men fall in love with access to princes ; others, with popular fame and 
applause, supposing they are things of great purchase, when in many cases, 
they are but matters of envy, peril, and impediment. Unmindful of his own 
doctrine, how much " worldly pursuits divert and interrupt the prosecution and 
advancement of knowledge, like unto the golden ball thrown before Atalanta, 
which, while she goeth aside and stoopeth to take up, the race is hindered 

Declinat cursus, aurumque volubile tollit." 

One of the consequences was the publication of the Novum Organum in its 
present state ; the sacrifice of his favourite work, upon which he had been 
engaged for thirty years, and had twelve times transcribed with his own hand. 

The second reason assigned by Lord Bacon for the publication of the Novum 
Organum in 1620 is, " to try whether I can get help in one intended part of 
this work, namely, the compiling of a natural and experimental history, which 
must be the foundation of a true and active philosophy." The meaning of this 
seems also to be obvious. Lord Bacon's conviction of the importance of 
Natural History, as the primitive matter of philosophy, appears in every part of 
his works ; in the Advancement of Learning ; the Sylva Sylvarum ; the New 
Atlantis ; the Wisdom of the Antients ; and the Novum Organum. It seems 
probable, therefore, that he availed himself of the moment when power was 
entrusted to him, to induce the king to assist in the formation of " such a col- 
lection of natural history as he had measured out in his mind, and such as really 
ought to be procured, which is," he says, "a great and royal work, requiring 
the purse of a prince, and the assistance of a people." He, therefore, in his 
presentation letter to the king, expresses his anxiety for the compiling a Natural 
History, and he renews his solicitation in his next letter to the king. 

Copies of the work were presented to the King, to the Universityof Cam- 
bridge, to Sir Henry Wotton, and to Sir Edward Coke. The following are the 
letters of presentation and the answers, 



BOTE BBB. 



To the King 1 . 



It may please your most excellent Majesty, — It being a thing to speak or 
write, specially to a king, in public, another in private, although I have dedi- 
cated a work, or rather a portion of a work, which at last I have overcome, to 
your majesty by a public epistle, where I speak to you in the hearing of others ; 
yet I thought fit also humbly to seek access for the same, not so much to your 
person, as to your judgment, by these private lines. 

The work, in what colours soever it may be set forth, is no more but a new 
logic, teaching to invent and judge by induction, as finding syllogism incom- 
petent for sciences of nature ; and thereby to make philosophy and sciences 
both more true and more active. This tending to enlarge the bounds of reason, 
and to endow man's estate with new value, was no improper oblation to your 
majesty, who, of men, is the greatest master of reason, and author of benefi- 
cence. 

There be two of your council, and one other bishop of this land, that know I 
have been about some such work near thirty years ; so as I made no haste. 
And the reason why I have published it now, specially being unperfect, is, to 
speak plainly, because I number my days, and would have it saved. There is 
another reason of my so doing, which is to try, whether I can get help in one 
intended part of this work, namely, the compiling of a natural and experimental 
history, which must be the main foundation of a true and active philosophy. 

This work is but a new body of clay, whereinto your majesty, by your coun- 
tenance and protection, may breathe life. And, to tell your majesty truly what 
I think, I account your favour may be to this work as much as an hundred 
years' time ; for I am persuadpd the work will gain upon men's minds in ages, 
but your gracing it may make it take hold more swiftly, which I would be very 
glad of, it being a w 7 ork meant, not for praise or glory, but for practice and the 
good of men. One thing, I confess, ] am ambitious of, with hope, which is, 
that after these beginnings, and the wheel once set on going, men shall seek 
more truth out of Christian pens than hitherto they have done out of heathen. 
I say with hope ; because I hear my former book of the Advancement of 
Learning is well tasted in the universities here, aud the English colleges 
abroad: and this is the same argument sunk deeper. And so I ever humbly 
rest in prayers, and all other duties, your Majesty's most bounden and devoted 
servant, Fr. Verulam, Cane. 

York House, this 12th of October, 1620. 

This Letter was written with the King's own hand, to my Lord Chancellor 
Verulam, upon his Lordship's sending to his Majesty his Novum Organum. 

My Lord, — I have received your letter and your book, than the which you 
could not have sent a more acceptable present unto me. How thankful I am 
for it cannot better be expressed by me than by a firm resolution I have taken ; 
first, to read it through with care and attention, though I should steal some 
hours from my sleep. Having otherwise as little spare time to read it as you 
had to write it. And then to use the liberty of a true friend, in not sparing to 
ask you the question in any point whereof I shall stand in doubt : " Nam ejus 
est explicare, cujus est condere," as on the other part 1 will willingly give a due 
commendation to such places as in my opinion shall deserve it. In the mean 
time I can with comfort assure you, that you could not have made choice of a 
subject more befitting your place, and your universal and methodical know- 
ledge ; and in the general, I have already observed, that you jump with me, in 
keeping the mid-way between the two extremes ; as also in some particulars, I 
have found that you agree fully with my opinion. And so praying God to give 
your work as good success as your heart can wish, and your labours deserve, I 
bid you heartily farewell. James R. 

October 16, 1620. 



NOTE BBB. 

To the King, thanking his Majesty for his gracious acceptance of his book. 

May it please your Majesty, — I cannot express how much comfort I received 
by your last letter of your own royal hand. I see your majesty is a star, that 
nath benevolent aspect and gracious influence upon all things, that tend to a 
general good. 

" Daphni, quid antiquos signorum suspicis artus 1 
Ecce Dionaei processit Caesaris astrum ; 
Astrum, quo segetes gauderent frugibus, et quo 
Duceret apricis in collibus uva colorem." 

This work, which is for the bettering of men's bread and wine, which are the 
characters of temporal blessings and sacraments of eternal, I hope, by God's 
holy providence, will be ripened by Caesar's star. 

Your majesty shall not only do to myself a singular favour, but to your busi- 
ness a material help, if you will be graciously pleased to open yourself to me in 
those things, wherein you may be unsatisfied. For though this work, as by 
position and principle, doth disclaim to be tried by any thing but by experience, 
and the results of experience in a true way ; yet the sharpness and profoundness 
of your majesty's judgment ought to be an exception to this general rule ; and 
your questions, observations, and admonishments, may do infinite good. 

This comfortable beginning makes me hope farther, that your majesty will be 
aiding to me, in setting men on work for the collecting of a natural and experi- 
mental history ; which is " basis totius negotii," a thing, which I assure myself 
will be, from time to time, an excellent recreation unto you ; I say, to that 
admirable spirit of yours, that delighteth in light ; and I hope well, that even 
in your times many noble inventions may be discovered for man's use. For 
who can tell, now this mine of truth is opened, how the veins go ; and what 
lieth higher, and what lieth lower? But let me trouble your majesty no further 
at this time. God ever preserve and prosper your majesty. 
October 19, 1620. 

To the Marquis of Buckingham. 

My very good Lord, — I send now only to give his majesty thanks for the 
singular comfort which I received by his majesty's letter of his own hand, 
touching my book. And I must also give your lordship of my best thanks, for 
your letter so kindly and affectionately written. 

I did even now receive your lordship's letter touching the proclamation, and 
do approve his majesty's judgment and foresight about mine own. Neither 
would I have thought of inserting matter of state for the vulgar, but that now- 
a-days there is no vulgar, but all statesmen. But, as his majesty doth excel- 
lently consider, the time of it is not yet proper, I ever rest your Lordship's 
most obliged friend, and faithful servant, Fr. Verulam, Cane. 

Indorsed — In answer to his majesty's directions touching the proclamation 
for a parliament. 

A Letter from the Lord Chancellor Verulam to the University of Cambridge, 
upon sending to their public library his Novum Organum, to which this 
letter written with his own hand is affixed. 

Aim a3 Matri Academise Cantabrigiensi, — Cum vester filius sim et alumnus, 
voluptati mihi erit, partum meum nuper editum vobis in gremium dare : aliter 
enim velut pro exposito eum haberem. Nee vos moveat, quod via nova sit. 
Necesse est enim talia per aetatum et seculorum circuitus evenire. Antiquis 
tamen suus constat honos ; ingenii scilicet : nam fides verbo Dei et. experientia 
tantum debetur. Scientias autem ad experientiam retrahere, non conceditur : 
at, easdem ab experientia, de integro excitare, operosum certe, sed pervium. 
Deus vobis, et studiis vestris faveat. Filius vester amantissimus, 

Ex zEdibus Eborac. 3 Octob. 1620. Franc. Verulam, Cane. (a) 

(a) Translation by Archbishop Tennison, in Baconiana, 192: — " Seeing I 
am your son, and your disciple, it will much please me to repose in your bosom 



NOTE BJBB. 

Lord Bacon to Sir Henry Wotton . 

My very good Cousin, — Your letter which I received from your lordship 
upon your going to sea was more than a compensation for any former omission ; 
and I shall be very glad to entertain a correspondence with you in both kinds, 
which you writ of; for the latter whereof I am now ready for you, having sent 
you some ore of that mine. I thank you for your favours to Mr. Mewtus, and 
I pray continue the same. So wishing you out of that honourable exile, and 
placed in a better orb, 1 ever rest your Lordship's affectionate kinsman, and 
assured friend, Fr. Verulam, Cane, (a) 

York House, Oct. 20, 1620. 

Sir Henry Wotton to Lord Bacon. 

Right honourable, and my very good Lord, — I have your lordship's letters, 
dated the 20th of October, and I have withal, by the care of my cousin, Mr. 
Thomas Meawtis, and by your own special favour, three copies of that work, 
wherewith your lordship hath done a great and ever-living benefit to all the 
children of nature, and to nature herself in her uttermost extent and latitude : 
who never before had so noble nor so true an interpreter, or (as I am readier to 
style your lordship) never so inward a secretary of her cabinet. But of your 
said work, which came but this week to my hands, I shall find occasion to 
speak more hereafter ; having yet read only the first book thereof, and a few 
aphorisms of the second. For it is not a banquet that men may superficially 
taste, and put up the rest in their pockets ; but in truth a solid feast, which 
requireth due mastication. Therefore when I have once myself perused the 
whole, I determine to have it read piece by piece at certain hours in my 
domestic college as an ancient author ; for I have learned thus much by it 
already, that we are extremely mistaken in the computation of antiquity, (&) by 

the issue which I have lately brought forth into the world ; for otherwise I 
should look upon it as an exposed child. Let it not trouble you, that the way 
in which I go is new ; such things will of necessity happen in the revolutions 
of several ages. However, the honour of the ancients is secured : that, I mean, 
which is due to their wit. For faith is only due to the word of God, and to ex- 
perience. Now, for bringing back the sciences to experience, is not a thing to 
be done ; but to raise them anew from experience is indeed a very difficult and 
laborious, but not a hopeless undertaking. God prosper you and your studies. 
" Your most loving son, Francis Verulam, Chancel." 

(a) When this letter, together with the other two next before and after it, 
were written, upon the occasion of my Lord Chancellor's publishing his Novum 
Organum, Sir Henry Wotton, so eminent for his many embassies, great learn- 
ing, candour, and other accomplishments, was resident at Vienna, endeavouring 
to quench that fire which began to blaze in Germany, upon the proclaiming the 
Elector Palatine King of Bohemia. How grateful a present this book was to 
Sir Henry, cannot better be expressed than by his answer to this letter ; which 
though it may be found in his Remains, I hope the reader will not be displeased 
to see part of it transcribed in this place. — Bacon's Letters. 

(/;) Bentham, in his Book of Fallacies says : " What in common language 
is called old time, ought (with reference to any period at which the fallacy in 
question is employed) to be called young or early time. As between individual 
and individual living at the same time and in the same situation, he who is old 
possesses, as such, more experience than he who is young ; — as between genera- 
tion and generation, the reverse of this is true, if, as in ordinary language, a 
preceding generation be, with reference to a succeeding generation, called old ; 
— the old or preceding generation could not have had so much experience as the 
succeeding. With respect to such of the materials or sources of wisdom which 
have come under the cognizance of their own senses, the two are on a par: 
with respect to such of those materials and sources of wisdom as are derived 
from the reports of others, the later of the two possesses an indisputable advan- 



NOTE BBB. 

searching it backwards, because indeed the first times were the youngest ; 
especially in points of natural discovery and experience. For though I grant 
that Adam knew the natures of all beasts, and Solomon of all plants, not only 
more than any, but more than all since their time ; yet that was by divine 
infusion, and therefore they did not need any such Organum as your lordship 
hath now delivered to the world ; nor we neither, if they had left us the memo- 
ries of their wisdom. 

But I am gone further than I meant in speaking of this excellent labour, 
while the delight yet I feel, and even the pride that I take in a certain congeni- 
ality, as I may term it, with your lordship's studies, will scant let me cease : 
and indeed I owe your lordship even by promise, which you are pleased to 
remember, thereby doubly binding me, some trouble this way ; I mean, by the 
commerce of philosophical experiments, which surely, of all other, is the most 
ingenuous traffic : therefore, &c. 

That a copy was sent to Sir Edward Coke, appears from the following melan- 
choly exhibition of this great lawyer's mind. 

In the library of the late Thomas Earl of Leicester, the descendant of Sir 
Edward Coke, at Holkham in Norfolk, is a copy of the Novum Organum, 
entitled Instauratio Magna, printed by John Bill in 1620, presented to Sir 
Edward, who at the top of the title page has written Edw. C. ex dono duct oris. 

Auctori Consilium. 
Insturare paras veterum documenta sophorum : 
Instura Leges Justitiamq ; prius. 

And over the device of the ship passing between Hercules's pillars, Sir Edward 
has written the two following verses : 

" It deserveth not to be read in schooles, 
But to be freighted in the Ship of Fools." («) 

The Novum Organum is noticed by Lord Bacon in other letters, both before 
and after the publication in 1620. In the year 1609 he wrote 

To Mr. Matthew, upon sending to him a part of Instauratio Magna. 
Mr. Matthew, — I plainly perceive by your affectionate writing touching my 
work, that one and the same thing affecteth us both ; which is, the good end 

tage. In giving the name of old or elder to the earlier generation of the two, 
the misrepresentation is not less gross, nor the folly of it less incontestable, than 
if the name of old man or old woman were given to the infant in its cradle. 
What then is the wisdom of the times called old 1 Is it the wisdom of gray 
hairs 1 No. It is the wisdom of the cradle."* 

(a) Alluding to a famous book of Sebastian Brand, born at Strasburgh about 
1460, written in Latin and High Dutch verse, and translated into English in 
1508, by Alexander Bark lay, and printed at London the year following by 
Richard Pynson, printer to Henry VII. and Henry VIII. in folio, with the 
following title, " The Shyp of Follys of the World : translated in the Coll. of 
Saynt Mary Otery in the count of Devonshyre, oute of Latin, Frenche, and 
Doche, into Englesse tongue, by Alex. Barklay, preste and chaplen in the said 
College m,ccccc,viii." It was dedicated by the translator to Thomas Cornish, 
bishop of Tine and suffragan bishop of Wells, and adorned with a great variety 
of wooden cuts. 

* No one will deny that preceding ages have produced men eminently distin- 
guished by benevolence and genius ; it is to them that we owe in succession all 
the advances which have hitherto been made in the career of human improve- 
ment : but as their talents could only be developed in proportion to the state of 
knowledge at the period in which they lived, and could only have been called 
into action with a view to then existing circumstances, it is absurd to rely on 
their authority, at a period and under a state of things altogether different. 



NOTE BBB. 

to which it is dedicated ; for as to any ability of mine, it cannot merit that 
degree of approbation. For your caution for church-men and church-masters, 
as for any impediment it might be to the applause and celebrity of my work, it 
moveth me not ; but as it may hinder the fruit and good which may come of a 
quiet and calm passage to the good port which it is bound, I hold it a just 
respect; so as to fetch a fair wind I go not too far about. But the truth is, 
that I at all have no occasion to meet them in my way ; except it be as they 
will needs confederate themselves with Aristotle, who, you know, is intempe- 
rately magnified by the schoolmen ; and is also allied, as I take it, to the 
Jesuits, by Faber, who was a companion of Loyola, and a great Aristotelian. 
I send you at this time the only part which hath any harshness; and yet I 
framed to myself an opinion, that whosoever allowed well of that preface, 
which you so much commend, will not dislike, or at least ought not to dislike, 
this other speech of preparation ; for it is written out of the same spirit, and out 
of the same necessity : nay, it doth more fully lay open that the question ber 
tween me and the ancients is not of the virtue of the race, but of the Tightness 
of the way. And to speak truth, it is to the other but as pal ma to pugnus, part 
of the same thing more large. You conceive aright, that in this and the other 
you have commission to impart and communicate them to others according to 
your discretion. Other matters I write not of. Myself am like the miller of 
Granchester, that was wont to pray for peace amongst the willows ; for while 
the winds blew, the wind-mills wrought, and the water-mill was less customed. 
So I see that controversies of religion must hinder the advancement of sciences. 
Let me conclude with my perpetual wish towards yourself, that the approbation 
of yourself, by your own discreet and temperate carriage, may restore you to 
your country, and your friends to your society. And so I commend you to 
God's goodness. 

Gray's Inn, Oct. 10, 1609. 

And there is another letter, in which, to use his own words, it appears 
" how much his heart was upon it." 

To Mr. Mathew. 

Sir, — I thank you for your last, and pray you to believe, &c. And I must 
confess my desire to be, that my writings should not court the present time, or 
some few places, in such sort as might make them either less general to persons, 
or less permanent in future ages. As to the Instauration, your so full appror 
bation thereof I read with much comfort, by how much more my heart is upon 
it ; and by how much less I expected consent and concurrence in a matter so 
obscure. Of this I can assure you, that though many things of great hope 
decay with youth, and multitude of civil businesses is wont to diminish the 
price, though not the delight of contemplations, yet the proceeding in that 
work doth gain with me upon my affection and desire, both by years and busi- 
nesses. And therefore I hope, even by this, that it is well pleasing to God, 
from whom, and to whom all good moves. To him I most heartily commend 
you. 

And in his address written in the year 1622, to " An Advertisement touching 
an Holy War, to the Right Reverend Father in God, Lancelot Andrews, Lord 
Bishop of Winchester, and Counsellor of Estate, to his Majesty." After menr 
tioning the instances of Demosthenes, Cicero, and Seneca, " All three persons 
that had held chief place of authority in their countries ; all three ruined, not 
by war, or by any other disaster, but by justice and sentence, as delinquents 
and criminals," he says, "These examples confirmed me much in a resolution 
whereunto I was otherwise inclined, to spend my time wholly in writing; and 
to put forth that poor talent, or half talent, or what it is, that God hath given 
me, not as heretofore to particular exchanges, but to banks or mounts of perpe-; 
petuity, which will not break. Therefore having not long since set forth a part 
of my Instauration, which is the work that in mine own judgment, ' si nunquam 
fallit imago,' 1 do most esteem ; I think to proceed in some new parts thereof. 
And although I have received from many parts beyond the seas, testimonies 

vol. xv. 17 



NOTE BBB. 

touching that work, such as beyond which I could not expect at the first in so 
abstruse an argument ; yet nevertheless I have just cause to doubt, that it flies 
too high over men's heads : (a) have a purpose therefore, though I break the 
order of time, to draw it down to the sense, by some patterns of a Natural Story 
and Inquisition. And again, for that my book of Advancement of Learning 
may be some preparative or key for the better opening of the Instauration, 
because it exhibits a mixture of new conceits and old ; whereas the Instauration 
gives the new unmixed, otherwise than with some little aspersion of the old for 
taste's sake : I have thought good to procure a translation of that book into the 
general language, not without great and ample additions, and enrichment 
thereof, especially in the second book, which handleth the partition of sciences ; 
in such sort, as I hold it may serve in lieu of the first part of the Instauration, 
and acquit my promise in that part." 

Such are the different sentiments expressed by Lord Bacon of his favourite 
work. 

The notices of this work by his faithful secretary and biographer, Dr. Rawley, 
and his admirer Archbishop Tennison, are as follows : — Dr. Rawley, in his life 
of Lord Bacon says, " I have been induced to think, that if there were a beam 
of knowledge derived from God, upon any man in these modern times, it was 
upon him : for though he was a great reader of books, yet he had not his know- 
ledge from books, but from some grounds and notions from within himself. 
Which, notwithstanding, he vented with great caution and circumspection. 
His book of Instauratio Magna (which, in his own account, was the chiefest of 
his works,) was no slight imagination or fancy of his brain, but a settled and 
concocted notion, the production of many years labour and travail. I myself 
have seen, at the least, twelve copies of the Instauration revised, year by year, 
one after another, and every year altered and amended in the frame thereof, till, 
at last, it came to that model in which it was committed to the press : as many 
living creatures do lick their young ones till they bring them to their strength of 
limbs." 

And Archbishop Tennison, speaking of the Novum Organum, says^ The 
second part of his great Instauration (and so considerable a part of it, that the 
name of the whole is given to it) is his Novum Organum Scientiarum, written 
by himself in the Latin tongue, and printed also most beautifully and correctly 
in folio, at London. This work he dedicated to King James, with the following 
excuse ; that, if he had stolen any time, for the composure of it, from his 
majesty's other affairs, he had made some sort of restitution, by doing honour to 
his name and his reign. The king wrote to him, then chancellor, a letter of 
thanks with his own hand. Part of the dedication is then stated. 

This Novum Organum containeth in it instructions concerning a better and 
more perfect use of reason in our inquisitions after things. And therefore the 
second title which he gave it was, directions concerning interpretations of 
nature. And by this art he designed a logic more useful than the vulgar, and 
an Organon apter to help the intellectual powers than that of Aristotle. For 
he proposed here, not so much the invention of arguments, as of arts ; and in 
demonstration, he used induction more than contentious syllogism ; and in his 
induction, he did not straightway proceed from a few particular sensible notions 
to the most general of all, but raised axioms by degrees, designing the most 
general notions for the last place ; and insisting on such of them as are not 
merely notional, but coming from nature, do also lead to her. 



(a) Mr. Chamberlain, in a letter to Sir Dudley Carleton, ambassador at 
Holland, dated at London, October 28, 1620, mentions, that Mr. Henry Cuffe, 
who had been secretary to Robert, Earl of Essex, and executed for being con- 
cerned in his treasons, having long since perused this work, gave his censure, 
" that a fool could not have written such a work, and a wise man would not." 
And, in another letter, dated February 3, 1620-1, Mr. Chamberlain takes 
notice, that the King could not forbear sometimes, in reading that book, to say, 
that it was " like the peace of God, that passeth all understanding." 



NOTE BBB. 

This book containeth three parts, the Preface ; the distribution of the work 
of the great Instauration ; Aphorisms, guiding to the interpretation of natuie. 

The preface considereth the present unhappy state of learning, together with 
counsels and advices to advance and improve it. To this preface therefore, are 
to be reduced the Indicia, and the proem in Gruter, concerning the interpre- 
tation of nature ; the first book de Augmentis Scientiarum, which treateth 
generally of their dignity and advancement; and his lordship's " Cogitata et 
Visa" written by him, in Latin, without intention of making them public in 
that form, and sent to Dr. Andrews, as likewise to Sir Thomas Bodley, with a 
desire to receive their censures and emendations. The latter returned him a 
free and friendly judgment of this work, in a large and learned letter, pub- 
lished in the Cabala, in the English tongue, and by Gruter in the Latin. 
The like, perhaps, was done by the former, though his answer be not extant. 

To the distribution belongeth that Latin fragment in Gruter, called the 
Delineation and Argument, of the second part of the Instauration. So doth 
that of the philosophy of Parmenides and Telesius, and (especially) Demo- 
critus. For, as he sheweth in the beginning of that part, he designed first to 
consider the learning of which the world was possessed ; and then to perfect 
that ; and that being done, to open new ways to further discoveries. 

To the Aphorisms is reducible his letter to Sir Henry Savil, touching helps 
for the intellectual powers, written by his lordship in the English tongue. A 
part of knowledge then scarce broken, men believing that nature was here 
rather to be followed than guided by art ; and as necessary (in his lordship's 
opinion) as the grinding and whetting of an instrument or the quenching it, 
and giving it a stronger temper. 

Also there belong to this place, the fragment called " Aphorismi et Consilia, 
de Auxiliis Mentis," and " Sententiae Duodecim de Interpretatione Naturae ;" 
both published by Gruter in the Latin tongue, in which his lordship wrote 
them. 

Different Editions of Novum Organum. 

The first edition of the Novum Organum was published in folio in 1620, 
when Lord Bacon was Chancellor ; annexed is the title page : Francisci de 
Verulamio summi Angliai Cancellarii, Instauratio Magna. Londini, apud Jo- 
annem Billium Typographum Reginm. 

Another edition was published in Holland in 1645. 

Another edition was published in 1650. Annexed is the title page : Fran- 
cisci de Verulamio summi Anglia Cancellarii, Instauratio Magna. Lvgd. Batav, 
Ex Officina Andriani Wyngaerden. 

Another edition was published in 1660. Annexed is the title page : Fran- 
cisci de Verulamio, summi Angliai Cancellarii, Instauratio Magna. Amstelce- 
dami, sumptibus Joannis Ravesteing. 

Francisci Baconi Baronis de Verulamio Novum Organum Scientiarum. 
Wirceburgi, apud Jo. Jac. Stahel. 1779. 

Another edition was published at Oxford in 1813. Annexed is the title 
page : Francisci Buconi de Vervlamio, summi Angliai Cancellarii, Novum Orga- 
num, sive Indicia vera de Interpretatione Natural. Oxonii, e Typographeo 
Clarendoniano. 

Translations. 

Translation, 1640. From Watts' Translation of De Augmentis. 

The introductory tract prefixed to the Novum Organum was translated in 
1640 by Dr. Watts, and is prefixed to his translation of the treatise " De 

Augmentis." 

Translation, 1671. From the 3rd edition of Resuscitatio. 

In the third edition of the Resuscitatio, published in 1671, there are thr«e 
translated tracts from the Novum Organum, viz. 



NOTE BBB. 

i ; " The Natural and Experimental History of the Form of Hot Things." 
2. " Of the several kinds of Motion, or of the active Virtue." 
3; A translation of the Parasceve, which is the beginning of the third part 
of the Instauration, but is annexed to the Novum Organum in the 
first edition. 
The following is the title page : A Preparatory to the History Natural and 
Experimental, written originally in Latine, by the Right Honourable Francis 
Lord Verulam, Lord High Chancellor of England, and now faithfully rendred 
into English. By a well wisher to his Lordship's writings. London, printed by 
Sarah Griffing and Ben. Griffing, for William Lee, at the Turks-head in Fleet 
Street, over against Fetter-Lane. 1670; 

Translation, 1676; From 10th edition of Sylva. 

In the 10th edition" of the Sylva Sylvarum, there is an abridged translation of 
the Novum OrganUm. The following is a copy of the title page : The Novurri 
Organum of Sir Francis Bacon, Bardn of Verulam, Viscount St, Albans. 
Epitomiz'd : for a clearer understanding of his Natural History. Translated 
and taken out of the Latine, by M. D. B. D. London, Printed for Thomas Lee, 
at the Turks-head in Fleet Street. As this tenth edition of the Sylva was pub- 
lished 1676, and Dr. Rawley died 1667, it must not, from any documents now 
known, be ascribed to him. It is not noticed in the Baconiana, published 
in 1679. 

In 1733, Peter Shaw, M.D. published a translation of the Novum Organum. 

In the year 1830 the translation published in this edition was by my friend, 
William Wood. 

In the year 1788 an Italian edition was published. The following is the 
title : Nuovo Organo delle Scienze di Francesco Bacone di Verulamio, Gran 
Cancelliere d' Inghilterra . Traduzione in Italiano con Annotazioni ed una Pre- 
fazione del Traduttore. Bassano, 1788, a Spese Remondini di Venezia. Con Li- 
eenza de' Superiori. 

In the year 1810 there was another Italian edition of the Novum Organum. 
Annexed is a copy of the title page : Nuovo Organo delle Scienze di Francesco 
Bacone di Verulamio traduzione in Italiano del can. Antonio Pelizzari. Edizione 
seconda arricchita di un Indice e -di Annotazioni. Bassano, Tipografa Remon- 
diniana. 

There is the following edition in French : CEuvres de Francois Bacon, Chan- 
celier d'Angleterre, traduites par Ant. Ldsalle / avec des notes critiques, historiques 
et litttraires. Tome quatrieme. A Dijon, de Vlmprimerie de L. N. Frantin. 
An % de la Republique Francaise. 

Different Editions. 
Year. Language. Printer. Place. Size. 

1620...... Latin T. Bill London......... Folio, 

1645 Ditto 18rao. 

1650 Ditto Wyngarden ... Lugd. Bat. .... i8mo. 

1660 Ditto Rovestein Ams 18mo. 

1779 .... Ditto I. Stahel Wirceburg 8vo. 

1803 Ditto , Serymgeour ... Glasguse 12mo. 

1813 Ditto... Clarendon Oxford 8vo. 

Translations. 

1671 English 3rd edition of Resuscitatio. 

1676 English 10th edition of Sylva. 

1733 English, by Shaw, Knapton London 4to. 

1788 Italian Venezia Basano ... 8vo. 

1793 German Nauck Berlin 8vo. 

1810 Italian Remondiniana Basano 8vo. 

1818 English, by Shaw, Sherwood London 12mo. 

Year8 Fr. Rep. French Frantin Dijon 8vo. 

1830 Wood Whittingham .. London 8vo. 



NOTE BBB. 



Tracts relating to Novum Organum. 



In the British Museum there are the following tracts relating to the Novum 
Organum. 

1. MS. Sloane, No. 432. fo. 131. Consideratio Novi Organi Verulamii 

institutu olim a David Mylio. 

2. MS. Sloane, No. 432. foh 38. Cdnsideratio corisiderationis Mylianae. 

Nature of the Work-. 
Miscellaneous. 
The intention of Lord Bacon with respect to the Novum Organum, he has 
himself explained in Aph. 22. part 2, where he says : We therefore propose to 
treat, 

1. Of prerogative instances. 

2. Of the helps of induction. 

3. Of the rectification of induction. 

4. Of the method of varying inquiries according to the nature of the 

subject. 

5. Of prerogative natures for inquiry, or what subjects are to be inquired 

into first, what second; 

6. Of the limits of inquiry, or an inventory of all the natures in the 

universe. 

7. Of reducing inquiries to practice, or making them subservient to human 

uses. 

8. Of the preliminaries to inquiries. 

9. And lastly, of the ascending and descending scale of axioms. 

Of these nine parts, the first, or prerogative instances, was alone completed. 
— " But time, in the interim, being on the wing, and the author too much 
engaged in civil affairs, especially considering the uncertainties of life, he 
would willingly hasten to secure some part of his design from contingencies ; 
and after much close thought, and a deliberate consideration, he determined, 
that to prevent so useful a thing from disaster, the best course was to propose 
and lay down certain tables of invention, or forms of genuine inquiry, that is, 
the digested matter of particulars, designed for the work of the understanding, 
and this in some determinate subjects, by way of example, or a palpable model 
of the whole. And hence, though we should not ourselves complete the under- 
taking, yet men of a solid and sublime genius, being thus admonished by what 
we have offered, may, without any greater assistance, expect the rest from 
themselves and finish it. For, as to the matter in hand, we are almost of his 
opinion, who said, this is enough for the wise ; but for the unwise, more would 
not be serviceable." 

Annexed to the Novum Organum in the first edition is, Purasceve ad Histo- 
riam Naturalem et Experimentalem , which is in fact the beginning of the third 
part of the Instauration, It is translated in the third edition of Ilesuscitatio. 

NOTE CCC. 

The Wisdom of the Ancients. 

The first edition was published in 1609. In February 27, 1610, Lord Bacon 
wrote to Mr. Matthew, upon sending his book De Sapientia Veterum. 

" Mr. Matthew, — I do very heartily thank you for your letter of the 24th of 
August from Salamanca ; and in recompence therefore 1 send you a little work 
of mine that hath begun to pass the world. They tell me my Latin is turned 
into silver, and become current : had you been here, you should have been my 
inquisitor before it came forth ; but, I think, the greatest inquisitor in Spain 
will allow it. But one thing you must pardon me if I make no haste to believe, 
that the world should be grown to such an ecstasy as to reject truth in phi- 



NOTE CCC. 

losophy, because the author dissenteth in religion ; no more than they do by 
Aristotle or Averroes. My great work goeth forward ; and after my manner, I 
alter ever when I add. So that nothing is finished till all be finished. This I 
have written in the midst of a term and parliament ; thinking no time so pos- 
sessed, but that I should talk of these matters with so good and dear a friend. 
And so with my wonted wishes I leave you to God's goodness. 
" From Gray's Inn, Feb. 27, 1610." 

And in his letter to Father Fulgentio, giving some account of his writings, 
he says, " My Essays will not only be enlarged in number, but still more in 
substance. Along with them goes the little piece ' De Sapientia Veterum.'" 

Bacon's sentiments with respect to these fables may be found in the " Ad- 
vancement of Learning," and in the " De Augmentis," under the head of 
Poetry. 

In the " Advancement of Learning" he says, " There remaineth yet another 
use of poesy parabolical, opposite to that which we last mentioned : for that 
tendeth to demonstrate and illustrate that which is taught or delivered, and this 
other to retire and obscure it : that is, when the secrets and mysteries of 
religion, policy, or philosophy, are involved in fables or parables. Of this in 
divine poesy we see the use is authorized. In heathen poesy we see the expo- 
sition of fables doth fall out sometimes with great felicity ; as in the fable that 
the giants being overthrown in their war against the gods, the Earth, their 
mother, in revenge thereof brought forth fame : 

' Illam Terra parens, ira irritata deorum, 
Extremam, ut perhibent, Coeo Enceladoque sororem 
Progenuit," 

expounded, that when princes and monarchs have suppressed actual and open 
rebels, then the malignity of the people, which is the mother of rebellion, doth 
bring forth libels and slanders, and taxations of the state, which is of the same 
kind with rebellion, but more feminine. So in the fable, that the rest of the 
gods having conspired to bind Jupiter, Pallas called Briareus with his hundred 
hands to his aid, expounded, that monarchies need not fear any curbing of 
their absoluteness by mighty subjects, as long as by wisdom they keep the 
hearts of the people, who will be sure to come in on their side. So in the fable, 
that Achilles was brought up under Chiron the centaur, who was part a man 
and part a beast, expounded ingeniously, but corruptly by Machiavel, that it 
belongeth to the education and discipline of princes to know as well how to 
play the part of the lion in violence, and the fox in guile, as of the man in 
virtue and justice. Nevertheless, in many the like encounters, I do rather 
think that the fable was first, and the exposition then devised, than that the 
moral was first, and thereupon the fable framed. For I find it was an ancient 
vanity in Chrysippus, that troubled himself with great contention to fasten the 
assertions of the Stoics upon the fictions of the ancient poets ; but yet that all 
the fables and fictions of the poets were but pleasure and not figure, I interpose 
no opinion. Surely of those poets which are now extant, even Homer himself, 
(notwithstanding he was made a kind of Scripture by the latter schools of the 
Grecians,) yet I should without any difficulty pronounce that his fables had no 
such inwardness in his own meaning ; but what they might have upon a more 
original tradition, is not easy to affirm ; for he was not the inventor of many of 
them." 

In the treatise " De Augmentis," the same sentiments will be found with a 
slight alteration in the expressions. He says, " there is another use of para- 
bolical poesy, opposite to the former, which tendeth to the folding up of those 
things, the dignity whereof deserves to be retired and distinguished, as with a 
drawn curtain : that is, when the secrets and mysteries of religion, policy, and 
philosophy are veiled and invested with fables and parables. But whether 
there be any mystical sense couched under the ancient fables of the poets, may 
admit some doubt : and indeed for our part we incline to this opinion, as to 
think that there was an infused mystery in many of the ancient fables of the 



NOTE CCC. 

poets. Neither doth it move us that these matters are left commonly to school- 
boys and grammarians, and so are embased, that we should therefore make a 
slight judgment upon them : but contrariwise because it is clear that the wri- 
tings which recite those fables, of all the writings of men, next to sacred writ, 
are the most ancient ; and that the fables themselves are far more ancient than 
they (being they are alleged by those writers, not as excogitated by them, but 
as credited and recepted before) seem to be, like a thin rarefied air, which from 
the traditions of more ancient nations, fell into the flutes of the Grecians." 

This tract seems, in former times, to have been much valued, for the same 
reason, perhaps, which Bacon assigns for the currency of the Essays; " be- 
cause they are like the late new halfpence, which, though the silver is good, yet 
the pieces are small." Of this tract, Archbishop Tenison in his Baconiana, 
says, " In the seventh place, I may reckon his book De Sapientia Veterum, 
written by him in Latin, and set forth a second time with enlargement ;* and 
translated into English by Sir Arthur Georges : a book in which the sages of 
former times are rendered more wise than it may be they were by so dextrous an 
interpreter of their fables. It is this book which Mr. Sandys means, in those 
words which he hath put before his notes, on the Metamorphosis of Ovid. 
' Of modern writers, I have received the greatest light from Geraldus, Pon- 
tanus, Eicinus, Vives, Comes, Scaliger, Sabinus, Pierius, and the crown of 
the latter, the Viscount of St. Albans.' 

"It is true, the design of this book was instruction in natural and civil 
matters, either couched by the ancients under those fictions, or rather made to 
seem to be so by his lordship's wit, in the opening and applying of them. But 
because the first ground of it is poetical story, therefore let it have this place 
till a fitter be found for it." 

The author of Bacon's Life, in the Biographia Britannica, says, " that he 
might relieve himself a little from the severity of these studies, and as it were 
amuse himself with erecting a magnificent pavilion, while his great palace of 
philosophy was building, he composed and sent abroad in 1610, his celebrated 
treatise Of the Wisdom of the Ancients, in which he showed that none had 
studied them more closely, was better acquainted with their beauties, or had 
pierced deeper into their meaning. There have been very few books published, 
either in this or in any other nation, which either deserved or met with more 
general applause than this, and scarce any that are like to retain it longer, 
for in this performance Sir Francis Bacon gave a singular proof of his capacity 
to please all parties in literature, as in his political conduct he stood fair with 
all the parties in the nation. The admirers of antiquity were charmed with 
this discourse, which seems expressly calculated to justify their admiration ; 
and, on the other hand, their opposites were no less pleased with a piece, 
from which they thought they could demonstrate that the sagacity of a modern 
genius had found out much better meanings for the ancients than ever were 
meant by them." 

And Mallet, in his Life of Bacon, says, " In 1610 he published another 
treatise, entitled Of the Wisdom of the Ancients. This work bears the same 
stamp of an original and inventive genius with his other performances. Re- 
solving not to tread in the steps of those who had gone before him, men, 
according to his own expression, not learned beyond certain common places, he 
strikes out a new tract for himself, and enters into the most secret recesses of 
this wild and shadowy region, so as to appear new on a known and beaten 
subject. Upon the whole, if we cannot bring ourselves readily to believe that 
there is all the physical, moral, and political meaning veiled under those fables 
of antiquity, which he has discovered in them, we must own that it required no 
common penetration to be mistaken with so great an appearance of probability 
on his side. Thougli it still remains doubtful whether the ancients were so 
knowing as he attempts to shew they were, the variety and depth of his own 
knowledge are, in that very attempt, unquestionable." 

* In the year 1617, in Latin. It was published in Italian in 1618; in 
French, in 1619. 



NOTE DDD. 

In the year 1619, this tract was translated by Sir Arthur Georges. Prefixed 
to the work are two letters ; the one to the Earl of Salisbury, the other to the 
University of Cambridge, which Georges omits, and dedicates his translation to 
the high and illustrious Princess the Lady Elizabeth of Great Britain, Duchess 
of Baviare, Countess Palatine of Rheine, and Chief Electress of the Empire. 

This translation, it should be noted, was published during the life of Lord 
Bacon by a great admirer of his works. 

The editions of this work with which I am acquainted are : 

Year. Language, Printer. Place, Size, 

1609 Latin R. Barker London 12mo. 

1617 Ditto T.Bill Ditto Ditto. 

1619 English Ditto Ditto Ditto. 

1620 Ditto Ditto Ditto Ditto. 

1633 Latin F. Maire Lug. Bat Ditto, 

1634 Ditto F.Kingston... London Ditto. 

1638 Latin E. Griffin London Folio. 

1691....... Ditto H. Weston.... Amsterdam ... 12mo. 

1804 French H. Frantin .... Dijon 8vo. 



NOTE DDD. 

Proof of the increase of business in the Court of Chancery. 
This note is divided into two parts : 

First. Proof of the assertion that the business of the court had increased to, 

this uncontrolable extent. 
Secondly. The remedies of this evil. 

First. Proof that the business of the court had increased. 

That the business of the court had, in the time of Lord Bacon, so increased 
as to require additional power to subdue it, appears ; 1st, from the considera- 
tion that the science of equity had been increasing for years ; 2ndly, from the 
complaints which, soon after were made in parliament, of which the following 
extract from the Journals of the Commons in 1620 will exhibit a specimen. 

The parliament met on the 16th of Jan. 18 Jacobi, when various committees 
were appointed. 

Sabbati, 17° Februarii, 18° Jacobi. 

Sir Edward Sackvyle reporteth from the committee for courts of justice, four 
heads: 1. Interfering of courts. Against protections. That an ordinary course 
in the court of Wards, where the principal dieth, his heir in ward, the surety 
protected ; so that the party that lent in great danger to lose his money. 2dly. 
Prosecutors for concealed wards, find an office in the remote parts of the 
country. A lease of lands gotten before the party knew it. A travers will cost 
100 marks : instance in Dayrell and Newdigate's case. 

2. The jurisdiction of courts, one pressing upon another. That at this time 
one committed in the court of Wards, for not obeying the decree there, where 
ordered against the ward : in the Chancery, ordered on the other part, and the 
person in prison there. Master of the Rolls' motion to have that determined by 
private conference, or to be ordered by the king ; not here, where properly not 
determinable. 

3. For fees : so great, as more cost to get an hearing set down of his cause 
than the cause worth. That alleged, the fees not now much greater than forty 
years sithence ; but many new officers in courts, who took much greater fees 
than heretofore. 

4. For both the first grievances in the court of Wards ; a bill against the 



NOTE DDD. 

protection, in the first case ; and the prosecutors to be put into the bill against 
informers. 

That offered from the Lord Chancellor, he would willingly consent that any 
man might speak freely any thing concerning his court. 

Mr. Alford ; To re-commit all these things, because not yet ripe. 

To inform the lords, what liberties they have lost. 2dly. Of the luxuriant 
authority of the Chancery ; and that it devoureth all that cometh into it. 

16 March. — Length of causes : 23 his ; some 30 years. Mulct in the civil 
law if a cause above three years. This power too much for any one man. 

That the Masters in Chancery should be reduced from twelve to six, &c. &c. 

3rdly. From the increased but unavailing exertion of the Chancellor to 
subdue the business* 

Lord Egerton. 

In Lord Bacon's speech upon taking his seat, he says : — For it hath been a 
manner much used of late in my last lord's time, of whom I learn much to 
imitate, and somewhat to avoid ; that upon the solemn and full hearing of a 
cause nothing is pronounced in court, but breviates are required to be made ; 
which I do not dislike in itself in causes perplexed. For I confess I have 
somewhat of the cunetative ; and I am of opinion, that whosoever is not wiser 
upon advice than upon the sudden, the same man was no wiser at fifty than he 
was at thirty. And it was my father's ordinary word, " You must give me 
time." But yet 1 find when such breviates were taken, the cause was some- 
times forgotten a term or two, and then set down for a new hearing, three or 
four terms after. And in the mean time the subject's pulse beats swift, though 
the Chancery pace be slow. 

D'Aguesseau, 

The same anxiety was felt in France by Chancellor d'Aguesseau. Mr. 
Butler, in his Reminiscences says, ,( The only fault imputed to him was dila- 
toriness of decision. We should hear his own apology. The general feeling of 
the public on this head was once respectfully communicated to him by his son. 
' My child,' said the Chancellor, ' when you have read what I have read, seen 
what I have seen, and heard what 1 have heard, you will feel that if on any 
subject you know much, there may be also much that you do not know, and 
that something, even of what you know, may not at the moment be in your 
recollection. You will then too be sensible of the mischievous and often 
ruinous consequences of even a small error in a decision ; and conscience, I 
trust, will then make you as doubtful, as timid, and consequently as dilatory as 
I am accused of being.' " 

Sir Matthew Hale. 

So too of Sir Matthew Hale it is said, " He continued eleven years in that 
place ; and it was observed by the whole nation how much he raised the repu- 
tation and practice of that court. The only complaint ever made against him 
was, ' that he did not dispatch matters quick enough,' but the causes that were 
tried before him were seldom if ever tried again." 

Lord Keeper North, 

The biographer of Lord Keeper North says, " I come now to his lordship's 
last and highest step of preferment in his profession, which was the custody of 
the great seal of England. And for conformity of language, I call this a pre- 
ferment; but in truth (and as his lordship understood) it was the decadence of 
all the joy and comfort of his life, and instead of a felicity, as commonly 
reputed, it was a disease like a consumption, which rendered him heartless 
and dispirited. By his acceptance of the great seal, he became, as before of 
the law, so now of equity, a chief, or rather sole justice. And more than that, 
he must be a director of the English affairs at court as chief minister of state, 
with respect to legalities, for which he was thought responsible. So, what with 
equity, politics, and law, the cares and anxieties of his lordship's life were 

vol.. xv. 18 



NOTE D D D. 

exceedingly increased ; for either of these provinces brought too much upon the 
shoulders of any one man (who cordially and conscientiously espouseth the 
duty required of him), to be easily borne. The greatest pain he endured, 
moved from a sense he had of the torment the suitors underwent by the ex- 
cessive charges and delays of the court. And the truth is, a court, as that is, 
with officers and fees proper for a little business, such as the judiciary part 
anciently was, coming to possess almost all the justice of the nation, must 
needs appear troubled. The business of his office was too great for one, who 
thought he was bound to do it all well." 

Lord Eldon. 

It was my good fortune to practise in the court of Chancery when the vener- 
able Lord Eldon presided in the court. He was a man of sound judgment - f 
he was never diverted from the truth by immediate impression. " I have made 
a covenant with myself," was his favourite maxim, " not to decide hastily, 
when [ am powerfully excited." He decided with unbiassed impartiality, 
never suffering any passion to interfere with the love of truth and of justice. 
He was quick in forming his opinions, but slow in deciding. From his exten- 
sive and accurate knowledge of law he appeared to me immediately to see the 
whole merits of the case ; but, from his anxiety to be just, his habit was, 
diligently to discover, before he decided, every thing which could be urged 
against the opinion he had formed. He was not tenacious in retaining any 
opinion. He was never ashamed of being wiser to-day than he was yesterday. 
A more analytical and discriminating mind never existed ; but he well knew 
where to stop : he never suffered himself to wander from the substance of the 
matter in judgment into useless subtlety and refinement. A more anxious 
judge never presided on earth. He was " patientissimus veri." A kinder 
heart never beat. His habit was the same as Lord Egerton's, and might be 
described in the same words as are used by Bacon : " For it hath been a 
manner much used of late in my last lord's time, of whom I learn much to 
imitate, and somewhat to avoid, that upon the solemn hearing of a cause 
nothing is pronounced in court, but breviates are required to be made, which I 
do not dislike in causes perplexed. But yet I find that when such breviates 
were taken, the cause was sometimes forgotten a term or two, and then set 
down for a new hearing, three or four terms after. And in the mean time the 
subject's pulse beats swift, though the Chancery pace be slow." 

In the year 1826 a commission was appointed to inquire into the delays of 
the court of Chancery. I was examined before this commission, and thus spoke 
respecting Lord Eldon : " I cannot but think it most unjust to confound the 
court with the judge. There is a spirit of improvement now moving upon this 
country, which ought not, as it appears to me, to be impeded by personality. 
Permanent defects in a court may perhaps generally be traced to the constitu- 
tion of the court ; that is, not to the judge, but to society. The real causes of 
these delays, are (I conceive) because the business of the court has increased 
for centuries, until it has become too extensive. This was assumed by the 
legislature, when the Vice Chancellor's court was appointed ; but since the 
appointment of the Vice Chancellor, the Lord Chancellor sits for a less time, 
and is, unless I am much mistaken, less able, when he does sit, to accelerate 
business. I consider the fact with respect to the delays in deciding to be 
indisputable. I am repeatedly urged to ask the Lord Chancellor for judgment, 
and I do again and again mention petitions to the Lord Chancellor ; but, 
knowing the pressure of business upon him, I confess I always do it with con- 
siderable reluctance." 

Having stated what appeared to me to be the different causes of these delays, 
I proceeded as follows : " The third cause appears to me to be, partly the con- 
stitution of the Chancellor's mind, and his anxiety to decide justly ; as an 
instance of which 1 beg to mention the case of Ex parte Blackburn, which I 
have stated to have been in the paper last year, relating to transactions so many 
years back. I argued this case (I think 1 may say) two or three times, and I 
certainly never was in my life'more satisfied with my own argument than I was 



NOTE DDD. 

in that case. I mentioned it again and again to the court, but I could not 
obtain judgment. At last the Lord Chancellor stated that he had been delibe- 
rating upon the case for many hours during the night, and that there was one 
point which had escaped rne in my argument, to which he wished to direct my 
attention, and he was pleased to direct my attention to it, and to desire it to be 
re-argued ; and upon re-arguing it, I was satisfied that he was right, and I was 
wrong ; and whatever may have been the cause of the delay, the consequence 
has been, that he has prevented the injustice which I should have persuaded 
him to have committed. I beg also to mention another case, (Ex parte Leigh), 
which will be found in Glyn and Jameson, 264, the case of a habeas corpus ; 
where, to my knowledge, the prisoner was detained illegally, upon an affidavit 
upon detainers for debt by a Mr. Claughton, (I think for 10,000/). The court 
cf King's Bench refused to discharge him. 1 presented a petition to the Chan- 
cellor on behalf of the bankrupt, being convinced that the decision of the court 
of King's Bench was erroneous ; and, it being in the case of the liberty of a 
prisoner, the Chancellor heard it immediately, and took the trouble of applying 
to the Chief Justice of the court of King's Bench; and, after deliberation, 
thought it his duty to reverse the judgment, and to order him to be discharged; 
and, but for this care and deliberation, I am satisfied he would have been in 
prison at this moment, as I know the hostility between these parties is con- 
tinuing to this very day. There is a petition in the paper between them coming 
on at these sittings. 1 am so convinced of the Lord Chancellor's caution and 
sense of justice, that, notwithstanding some resistance, I have always insisted 
upon the right given to prisoners by the habeas corpus act to select their own 
judge, which I trust will never be diminished, and have selected the Lord 
Chancellor in preference to all the judges. With the pressure of business 
upon the Lord Chancellor, and his anxiety, it is (I conceive) very difficult for 
him to decide expeditiously ; and if any part of the blame is to attach to the 
Lord Chancellor, it is (I conceive) only this anxiety (ultra anxiety if I may 
so say) to decide justly. I have no disposition to praise the Chancellor, or any 
man living, more than I ought. I am much mistaken if there are any two 
men in the country who differ more in their views of society than the Lord 
Chancellor and myself. T almost always thought and acted, and I am rejoiced 
at the recollection of it, with Sir Samuel Romilly : but, speaking of the Lord 
Chancellor as a judge, I should be most ungrateful if I did not feel his kindness 
to me for near twenty years, and (as T think) to the whole of his profession, 
during his long judicial life. I should think most ill of myself, if I did not 
look up with the greatest respect to his extensive knowledge and extraordinary 
powers ; dilating his sight so as to view the whole of every subject, and con- 
tracting it so as not to suffer the most minute object to escape him. I should 
be most unjust, if I did not acknowledge his patience to hear, his charity to hope, 
and his anxiety to do justice to every suitor of the court. I trust, therefore, that 
I shall be protected from the supposition that I wish to ascribe the faults of 
the court to the judge." — Do not these permanent effects upon powerful minds 
say that the business of the court was beyond the reach of any one mind? 

" Mark," says Lord Bacon, " whether the doubts that arise are only in cases 
not of ordinary experience, or which happen every day. If in the first, impute 
it to the frailty of man's foresight, that cannot reach by law all the cases ; but, 
if in the latter, be assured that there is a fault in the law itself." 

Secondly. The Remedies. 

Assuming that the pressure upon the court had thus increased, the question 
is, how ought it to be met 1 The modes are two. 

First, by increasing the number of the judges in the same or in different 
courts. 

Secondly, by increased diligence on the part of the individual judge. 

The tendency of society would be to adopt the latter mode. Lord Bacon, in 
his instances of power in the Novum Organum, says, " It is one of the great 
obstacles to improvement that the mind has a tendency to suppose that nothing 
can be accomplished, unless the same means be employed with, perhaps, a 



NOTE t)DD. 

little more diligence* and more accurate preparation 5 whereas, on the contrary 
it may be stated as a fact, that the ways and means hitherto discovered and 
observed, of effecting any matter Or work, are for the most part of little value, 
and that all really efficient power depends, and is really to be deduced from the 
sources of forms, none of which have yet been discovered. Thus," he addsj 
" if any power had meditated on balistic machines and battering rams, as they 
were used by the ancients, whatever application he might have exerted, and 
though he might have consumed a whole life in the pursuit; yet would he never 
have hit upon the invention of flaming engines, acting by means of gunpowder ; 
nor would any person, who had made woollen manufactories and cotton the 
subject of his observation and reflection, have ever discovered thereby the nature 
of the silkworm or of silk." Unfortunately, therefore, the mode of remedying 
this evil in the court of Chancery was, not by resorting to any new expedient, 
but by calculating upon increased exertion on the part of the Chancellor ; and 
the consequence has been, such an inadequacy of power to subdue the business, 
that the word Chancery has been for centuries, and is proverbial for delay and 
expence. 

The increased diligence on the part of the court has always manifested itself 
in proportion to the intelligence and expanded mind of the judge, as appears 
from the exertions of Lord Egerton, of Lord Eldon, and of Sir M. Hale* 

I well remember the perplexities in which Lord Eldon was placed* The 
pressure of the business was so great, and the time requisite for politics was* 
during the French Revolution, so excessive, that it was impossible that the 
business of the court could be subdued by his, or by any mind. On the one 
side he was surrounded by the senseless yells of ignorance, which he might 
have pacified by affected dispatch 2 on the other side, he had to preserve the 
interests of the suitors and his own approbation, by the consciousness of acting 
as a judge ought to act, without any fear but the fear of deciding unjustly* 
He preferred the latter. He went right onward in his course, regardless of the 
bayings at him ; and, to the disgrace of the country, he was censured by the 
great mass of the community for having sacredly preserved the interests of 
the suitors and the dignified administration of justice. It may be well for 
a moment to consider Lord Bacon's sentiments upon judicial delay and 
dispatch. 

In his essay " Of Dispatch" he says, " Affected dispatch is one of the most 
dangerous things to business that can be : it is like that which the physicians 
call predigestion, or hasty digestion ; which is sure to fill the body full of 
crudities and secret seeds of diseases : therefore measure not dispatch by the 
times of sitting, but by the advancement of the business ; and as, in races, it is 
not the large stride, or high lift, that makes the speed ; so in business, the 
keeping close to a matter, and not taking of it too much at once, procureth 
dispatch. It is the care of some only to come off speedily for the time, or to 
contrive some false periods of business, because they may seem men of dis- 
patch ; bat it is one thing to abbreviate by contracting, another by cutting off; 
and business so handled at several sittings or meetings, goeth commonly back- 
ward and forward in an unsteady manner. I knew a wise man that had it for 
a byword, when he saw men hasten to a conclusion, ' Stay a little, that we 
make an end the sooner/ 

" On the other side, true dispatch is a rich thing ; for time is the measure of 
business, as money is of wares ; and business is bought at a dear hand where 
there is small dispatch. 

" There be three parts of business : the preparation, the debate, or examina- 
tion, and the perfection ; whereof if you look for dispatch, let the middle only 
be the work of many, and the first and last the work of few. The proceeding 
upon somewhat conceived in writing doth for the most part facilitate dispatch ; 
for though it should be wholly rejected, yet that negative is more pregnant of 
direction than an indefinite, as ashes are more generative than dust." 

And in his speech, when he took his seat as Chancellor, he says, " There is 
another point of true expedition, which resteth much in myself, and that is in 
my manner of giving orders. For I have seen an affectation of dispatch turn 



NOTE DDD. 

utterly to delay at length • for the manner of it is to take the tale out of the 
counsellor at the bar his mouth , and to give a cursory order, nothing tending or 
conducing to the end of the business. It makes me remember what I heard 
one say of a judge that sat in Chancery 5 that he would make forty orders in a 
morning out of the way, and it was out of the way indeed 5 for it was nothing to 
the end of the business : and this is that which makes sixty, eighty, an hundred 
orders in a cause, to and fro, begetting one another ; and like Penelope's web, 
doing and undoing. But I mean not to purchase the praise of expeditive in 
that kind • but as one that have a feeling of my duty, and of the case of others. 
My endeavour shall be to hear patiently, and to cast my order into such a 
mould as may soonest bring the subject to the end of his journey. 

To the same effect he says, in his essay " Of Delays," " The ripeness or 
unripeness of the occasion (as we said) must ever be well weighed ; and gene- 
rally it is good to commit the beginnings of all great actions to Argos with his 
hundred eyes, and the ends to Briareus with his hundred hands ; first to watch, 
and then to speed ; for the helmet of Pluto, which maketh the politic man go 
invisible, is secrecy in the council, and celerity in the execution ; for when 
things are once come to the execution, there is no secrecy comparable to celerity ; 
like the motion of a bullet in the air, which flieth so swift as it outruns the eye." 

It is evident Lord Bacon thought the number of the judges ought to be 
increased^ Although in the infancy of the science of equity its administration 
ought perhaps to be entrusted to one master mind, yet, when the science 
advances, it swells beyond the power of any individual. Hence Lord Bacon, 
in the thirty-eighth aphorism of his " Justitia Universalis," says, "At curiae 
illae uni viro ne committantur sed ex pluribus constent." And he says to the 
same effect in his tract on the perfection of the Church : " But there be two 
circumstances in the administration of bishops, wherein, I confess, I could 
never be satisfied ; the one, the sole exercise of their authority 3 the other, the 
deputation of their authority. 

" For the first, the bishop giveth orders alone, excommunicateth alone, 
judgeth alone. This seemeth to be a thing almost without example in good 
government, and therefore not unlikely to have crept in in the degenerate and 
corrupt times. We see the greatest kings and monarchs have their councils. 
There is no temporal court in England of the higher sort where the authority 
doth rest in one person. The king's bench, common pleas, and the exchequer, 
are benches of a certain number of judges. The chancellor of England hath 
an assistance of twelve masters of the chancery. The master of the wards hath 
a council of the court : so hath the chancellor of the duchy. In the exchequer 
chamber, the lord treasurer is joined with the chancellor and the barons. The 
masters of the requests are ever more than one. The justices of assize are two. 
The lord presidents in the North and in Wales have councils of divers. The 
star-chamber is an assembly of the king's privy council, aspersed with the lords 
spiritual and temporal : so as in courts the principal person hath ever either 
colleagues or assessors. 

" The like is to be found in other well governed commonwealths abroad, 
where the jurisdiction is yet more dispersed : as in the court of parliament of 
France, and in other places. No man will deny but the acts that pass the 
bishop's jurisdiction are of as great importance as those that pass the civil 
courts : for men's souls are more precious than their bodies or goods, and so are 
their good names. Bishops have their infirmities, and have no exception from 
that general malediction which is pronounced against all men living, " Vae 
soli, nam si occideret, &c." Nay, we see that the first warrant in spiritual 
causes is directed to a number, ' Die Ecclesiae ;' which is not so in temporal 
matters : and we see that in general causes of church government there are as 
well assemblies of all the clergy in councils as of all the states in parliament. 
Whence should this sole exercise of jurisdiction come 1 Surely I do suppose, 
and I think upon good ground, that ' ab initio non fuit ita ;' and that the deans 
and chapters were councils about the sees and chairs of bishops at the first, and 
were unto them a presbytery or consistory ; and intermeddled not only in the 
disposing of their revenues and endowments, but much more in jurisdiction 



NOTE EEE. 

ecclesiastical. But it is probable, that the deans and chapters stuck close to 
the bishops in matters of profit and the world, and would not lose their hold ; 
but in matters of jurisdiction, which they accounted but trouble and attendance, 
they suffered the bishops to incroach and usurp ; and so the one continueth, and 
the other is lost. And we see that the bishop of Rome, ' fas enim et ab hoste 
doceri,' and no question in that church the first institutions were excellent, 
performeth all ecclesiastical jurisdiction as in consistory. 

" And whereof consisteth this consistory, but of the parish priests of Rome, 
which term themselves cardinals, ' a cardinibus mundi,' because the bishop 
pretendeth to be universal over the whole world 1 And hereof again we see 
many shadows yet remaining : as, that the dean and chapter, ' pro forma,' 
chooseth the bishop, which is the highest point of jurisdiction ; and that the 
bishop, when he giveth orders, if there be any ministers casually present, calleth 
them to join with him in imposition of hands, and some other particulars. And 
therefore it seemeth to me a thing reasonable and religious, and according to 
the first institution, that bishops, in the greatest causes, and those which require 
a spiritual discerning, namely, in ordaining, suspending, or depriving ministers, 
in excommunication, being restored to the true and proper use, as shall be 
afterwards touched, in sentencing the validity of marriages and legitimations, 
in judging causes criminous, as simony, incest, blasphemy, and the like, 
should not proceed sole and unassisted : which point, as I understand it, is a 
reformation that may be planted ' sine strepitu,' without any perturbation at 
all : and is a matter which will give strength to the bishops, countenance to the 
inferior degrees of prelates or ministers, and the better issue or proceeding 
to those causes that shall pass." 



NOTE EEE. 



Mar. 3, 1617. Rex invisit Cancellarium languentem, et ex invalida senecta 
officio cedere volentem ; sigillumque in manus Regis lachrymantis tradidit.- — 
Annalium Apparatus, Camdeni Epistolae, page 24, pub. 1691. 

Mar. 7, 1617. Sigillum magnum traditur Francisco Bacono Attornato 
Regio ; anno aetatis 54 quern Rex admonuit, ut nihil nisi deliberate sigillet, 
«x equo et bono judicet, nee praerogativam Regiam nimio plus extendat. — 
Annalium Apparatus, Camdeni Epistolae, page 24, pub. 1691. But see his 
speech upon taking his seat in Chancery, in which he states that there were 
Jour admonitions, which he explains as stated in the text. 

In his address to the bar, upon taking his seat in Chancery, he said, "The 
king's charge, which is my lanthorn, rested upon four heads. 

'* The first was that I should contain the jurisdiction of the court within its 
true and due limits, without swelling or excess. 

" The second, that I should think the putting of the great seal to letters 
patents was not a matter of course after precedent warrants, but that I should 
take it to be the maturity and fulness of the king's intentions ; and therefore 
that it was one of the greatest parts of my trust, if I saw any scruple or cause 
of stay, that I should acquaint him concluding with a quod dubites nefeceris. 

" The third was that I should retrench all unnecessary delays, that the 
subject might find that he did enjoy the same remedy against the fainting of the 
seal, and against the consumption of the means and estate, which was speedy 
justice, bis dat, qui cito daL 

'- The fourth was that justice might pass with as easy charge as might be, 
and that those same brambles that grow about justice of needless charge and 
expense, and all manner of exactions might be rooted out so far as might be. 

" These commandments, my lords, are righteous, and (as I may term them) 
sacred j and therefore, to use a sacred form, I pray God bless the king for his 
great care over the justice of the land ; and give me his poor servant grace and 
power to observe his precepts." 

The Lord Chancellor Ellesmere about this time, weary of his public employ- 
ment, and weakened with age, desired the king's leave to retire, that he might 



NOTE EEE. 

make use of the short time left him to cast up his accounts for another world. 
The king gave the seal, and the place of Lord Chancellor, to Sir Francis Bacon, 
his attorney general ; and the old Lord Ellesmere wore out the remnant of his 
life in quiet, dying in a good old age, and full of virtuous fame, leaving a noble 
posterity, who enjoy a great estate, with the title of Earl of Bridgwater. — 
Wilson's History of Great Britain, page 97, pub. 1616. 

Upon the 21st of July, 1 Jac. Sir Thomas Egerton was raised to the degree 
of- a baron of this realm, by the title of Lord Ellesmere ; also, upon the 24th of 
the same month made Lord Chancellor of England ; and lastly, viz. 7 Nov. 14 
Jac. advanced to the dignity of Viscount Brackley. — Dugdale's Baronage of 
England, vol. ii. page 414, pub. 1675. 

The following is a copy of the patent : 

Pro Francisco Bacon, milite, domino custode magni sigilli Angliae. 

James, by the grace of God, &c. — To the Treasurer and Barons of our 
Exchequer, and to the auditor or auditors of the accompt of the clerk or keeper 
of our Hanaper in our Chancery, and of our chief butler of England, and of 
our keeper of our great garderobe, and to the clerk or keeper of our said 
Hanaper, to our said chief butler of England, and to the keeper and clerk of 
our said garderobe, and to every of them that now be, and for the time hereafter 
shall be, greeting. 

Whereas we, of our grace especial, certain knowledge and mere motion, for 
the great trust and confidence that we have in the wisdom and dexterity of our 
right trusty and well beloved counseller Sir Francis Bacon, knight, lord keeper 
of our great seal of England, and for certain other special causes us moving, 
have given and granted unto the said Sir Francis Bacon, knight, the office of 
lord keeper of the great seal of England, and given authority to the said lord 
keeper to hear, examine, and determine causes, matters, and suits as shall 
happen to be, as well in our Chancery as in our Star Cha .iber, like as the 
chancellor of England, or keeper of the great seal of England of us, or our pro- 
genitors, for the time being, heretofore hath used, done, and practised, with all 
and singular manner of fees and commodities to or with the same room or office 
of chancellor or keeper of the great seal of England, in any wise, or by any 
manner of mean, due, appertaining, used or belonging in like, and in as ample 
manner and form as any lord chancellor of England or lord keeper of the great 
seal of England either in the time of King Henry the Eighth or King Edward 
the Sixth, or in the times of Queen Mary or Queen Elizabeth, or in our time 
hath had, enjoyed, perceived, and received for and in the same. And therefore 
we will, charge and command, not only the clerk or keeper of our Hanaper, in 
our said Chancery, for the time being, that ye, of such our money as is, or 
shall come to your hands of ours, or to our use, do content and pay, or cause 
to be contented and paid unto the said Sir Francis Bacon, knight, from time to 
time, for his wages, diets, robes, and liveries of himself and the masters of our 
Chancery like fees and rewards, and in as large manner, and as large sum and 
sums of money, as any of the said lord chancellors, or lord keepers of the great 
seal had and perceived for the same room or office of lord chancellor or lord 
keeper of the great seal ; that is to say, five hundred forty-two pounds and 
fifteen shillings sterling by the year, for and from the seventh day of this instant 
month of March hitherto, and from henceforth as long as the said Sir Francis 
Bacon shall exercise the said room or office of lord keeper of our great seal of 
England ; and also for his attendance in our said Star Chamber, after the rate 
of fifty pounds sterling every term, and after the rate of three hundred pounds 
by the year from the said seventh day of this instant month of March hitherto, 
and from henceforth, as long as the said Sir Francis Bacon shall execute the 
same room or office of our lord keeper of our great seal, over and above the said 
allowance, in like manner as the aforesaid lord chancellors or lord keepers of 
the great seal before this time at any time had and perceived. And also that 
ye, our chief butler of England for the time being, content and pay, or cause 
to be contented and paid to the said Sir Francis Bacon, after the rate of 
threescore pounds for twelve tons of wine by the year, and so after the same 



NOTE EEE. 

iate for and from the aforesaid seventh day of this instant month of March 
hitherto, and so from henceforth, during the time that he shall occupy and 
exercise the said room or office of lord keeper of our great seal. And also 
that ye, the keeper of our great garderobe for and from the same time 
hitherto, and from henceforth, of such our money or revenue as is or shall 
be coming to your hands, do content and pay or cause to be contented and 
paid to the said Sir Francis Bacon, for his wax due to him by reason of 
his said office of lord keeper of our great seal, after the rate of sixteen pounds 
by the year, for and from the same time hitherto, and so forth, in like manner 
and form as the foresaid lord chancellors or lord keepers of the great seal 
at any time had or received for the same in the said office or room of lord 
chancellor or lord keeper of the great seal. And further, we will and grant 
that ye, our said treasurers and barons of our said Exchequer, and the auditors, 
and all other our officers and ministers for the time being, or that hereafter shall 
be, and every of you, to whom in this cause it shall appertain, from time to 
time do make or cause to be made to the said clerk or keeper of our Hanaper, 
of our said Chancery, and to the said chief butler of England, and also to the 
said keeper of our great garderobe, for the time being, and to every of them in 
their several accompt or accompts, of which they or any of them be in yielding, 
or shall yield before you or any of you, at or for any time or times, due allow- 
ance, plain deduction, and discharge of all and several the aforesaid sums of 
money, as they or any of them shall content and pay for the wages, fees, 
rewards, robes and wine, as before particularly expressed, by us granted as afore r 
said for and from the said seventh day of this instant month of March hitherto, 
and from henceforth, during the time that the said Sir Francis Bacon shall exer- 
cise the said office of lord keeper of our great seal of England. 

Any matter, law, course, or cause you or any of you, moving to the contrary 
in any wise notwithstanding ; and these our letters, under our great seal, shall 
be unto you and every of you sufficient warrant and discharge in this behalf. 
In witness whereof, &c. Witness ourself at Westminster, the thirtieth day of 
March. — Per breve de privato-sigillo. 

See Rymer, vol. xviii. p. 1, 1617. Blackburn, vol. i. 97, 

Falsehoods in circulation. 

As a specimen of the falsehoods in circulation in these times, the following 
extract from Weldon is inserted : " Next, Egerton had displeased him by not 
giving way to his exorbitant desires. He must out, and would not let him 
seale up his dying eyes with the seals which he had so long carryed, and so 
well discharged ; and to despight him the more, and to vex his very soul in the 
last agony, he sent Bacon (one he hated yet to be his successor) for the seals, 
which the old man's spirit could not brook, but sent them by his own servant to 
the king, and shortly after yielded his soul to his Maker. 

" And to the end you may know what men were made choyce of to serve 
turns, I shall set you down a true story. This great favorite sent a noble 
gentleman, and of much worth, to Bacon with this message ; that he knew him 
to be a man of excellent parts, and as the times were, fit to serve his master in 
the keeper's place ; but he also knew him of a base and ingrateful disposition, 
and an arrant knave, apt in his prosperity to ruine any that had raised him from 
adversity ; yet for all this, he did so much study his master's service, (knowing 
how fit an instrument he might be for him) that he had obtained the seals for 
him ; but with this assurance, should he ever requite him, as he had done 
some others, to whom he had been more bound, he would cast him down as 
much below scorn, as he had now raised him high above any honor he could 
ever have expected. 

" Bacon was at that time attorney general, who patiently hearing this message, 
replyed, ' I am glad my noble lord deals so friendly and freely with me, and 
hath made that choyce of so discreet and noble a friend, that hath delivered his 
message in so plain language.' ' But,' saith he, ' can my lord know these 
abilities in me, and can he think when I have attained the highest preferment 
my profession is capable of, I shall so much faile in my judgment and under- 



NOTE EEE. 

standing, as to lose those abilities, and by my miscarriage to so noble a patron, 
cast myself headlong from the top of that honor to the very bottome of con- 
tempt and scorn? Surely my lord cannot think so meanly of me.' The 
gentleman replied, ' I deliver you nothing from myself, but the words are put 
into my mouth by his lordship, to which I neither add nor diminish ; for had it 
been left to my discretion, surely, though I might have given you the substance, 
yet should I have apparelled it in a more modest attire ; but as I have faith- 
fully delivered my lord's to you, so will I as faithfully return yours to his 
lordship.' 

" You must understand the reason of this message was his ungratefulness to 
Essex, which every one could remember ; for the earle saved him from starving, 
and he requited him so as his apology must witness ; were there not a great 
fault there needed no apology : nor could any age, but a worthless and corrupt, 
in men and manners, have thought him worthy such a place of honor." 

Such is a specimen of falsehoods at that time in circulation. It is thus 
noticed in the Life of Lord Bacon in the Biographia Britannica. 

" There is perhaps no country in the world in which exalted fortune does not 
beget envy, but at the same time, I believe, it may be truly said that kind of 
envy rises no where higher, or manifests itself with more violence and bitterness 
than with us in England. The Lord Keeper Bacon felt this very severely, for 
no sooner was he advanced to this high point of preferment in his profession, 
than all tongues were opened against him, that either from interest or inclina- 
tion, wished to have seen some other person seated in that high post. How- 
ever, very little evil was publicly divulged of him during his lifetime, when it 
might have afforded room for apology or defence, but has discovered itself in 
libels, penned indeed by such as lived in his days, but not such as were most 
likely to be well acquainted with him, or the points of which they so confidently 
wrote. Sir Anthony Weldon, in his Court and Character of King James, 
asserts," &c. as stated supra. The biographer in the Biographia Britannica 
adds, " But this account contains two egregious falsities : for, in the first 
place, though, as we have seen in the text, Camden says, the Chancellor 
resigned to the King himself; other authors agree that it was the King sent for 
the seals, and not the Duke of Buckingham ; and he sent for them, not by Sir 
Francis Bacon, but by Secretary Winwcod, with this message, that himself 
would be his under-keeper, and not dispose of them while he lived to bear the 
name of Chancellor ; nor did any person remove the seal out of the King's 
sight till the Lord Egerton died, which happened soon after. In the next 
place, the Lord Chancellor Egerton, as Dr. Tennison observes, was willing 
that the Attorney General, Bacon, should be his successor, and ready to pro- 
mote it : so far was he from conceiving any hatred against him either upon that 
or any other account. In the same volume we have likewise his speech at the 
taking his place in Chancery, in performance of the charge his majesty had 
given him, when he received the seals in 1617. Sir Anthony Weldon has 
upon this occasion introduced another scandalous story with regard to Sir 
Francis Bacon, and tells us that this great favourite (Buckingham) sent a 
noble gentleman and of much worth to him with this message, That he knew 
him," &c. ut supra. He then adds, '* Very hard language this of a man so 
eminent and well known, and this from a person of no character at all, or, 
which is worse, of a very bad one. At present it shall suffice that we observe 
there is not the least degree of probability in the story which he relates, at 
the same time that he pretends not to the least shadow of evidence ; so that we 
are to take a fact, which would scarcely deserve credit, though supported by 
ever so good witnesses, without any witness at all, and this against the light of 
one's own reason, and of a multitude of facts which may be alleged to discredit 
it ; for whereas this is made to have been a sudden promotion, in consequence 
of a bargain with Buckingham, we have seen that it was so far from being 
such a promotion, that it was long before in agitation with the King himself, 
upon whom it is evident enough Sir Francis Bacon chiefly depended. This 
story makes Buckingham, even before he had acquired that title, an insolent 
and overbearing favourite, which is directly contrary to what all the historians 

VOL. XV, 19 



NOTE EEE. 

of those times say, who commend him for his affability and generosity at the 
beginning, by which, as he rose in the King's favour, he grew likewise in 
esteem with his subjects, pursuing therein a conduct very different from that of 
his predecessor, Somerset, who really raised and disgraced, brought into credit 
or drove out of the court, without the least regard to decency, men of great 
merit or men of none, just as his interest required or his fancy dictated. It is 
not therefore at all probable, that the new favourite, who so well knew by what 
steps the old one became so very odious, should immediately pursue his path ; 
more especially when he could not but very well know, that he was far enough 
from being absolutely master of the King's good graces, out of which he had 
very nearly thrown himself a very little after this, by most imprudently disco- 
vering his aversion to the King's intended journey into Scotland." 

Saunderson says, speaking of Lord Ellesmere, " This aged statesman leaves 
the seat of deciding, and sits down himself to his devotions, leaving the seal to 
be born by Bacon. But the manner of the dispose is mis-told by the pamphlet 
(who makes it the Chancellor's heart-break to be rid of the charge), when in 
truth the term come, and Ellesmere sick, the King sent for the seal, by Secre- 
tary Winwood, with a gracious message ; that himself would be his deputy, and 
not dispose it whilst Ellesmere lived to bear the title of Chancellor, nor did any 
one receive it out of the King's sight till he was dead, nor long after." 1616. 



NOTE FFF. 



His works abound with proofs of this. In a letter to Lord Burleigh in the 
year 1592, he says, " My health, I thank God, I find confirmed ; and I do not 
fear that action shall impair it : because I account my ordinary course of study 
and meditation to be more painful than most parts of action are. I ever bear a 
mind, in some middle place that I could discharge, to serve her majesty ; not 
as a man born under Sol, that loveth honour ; nor under Jupiter, that loveth 
business, for the contemplative planet carrieth me away wholly. The meanness 
of my estate doth somewhat move me : for though I cannot accuse myself, that 
I am either prodigal or slothful, yet my health is not to spend, nor my course to 
get. Lastly, I confess that I have as vast contemplative ends, as I have 
moderate civil ends : for I have taken all knowledge to be my province. And 
if your lordship will not carry me on, I will not do as Anaxagoras did, who 
reduced himself with contemplation unto voluntary poverty ; but this I will do : 
I will sell the inheritance that I have, and purchase some lease of quick 
revenue, or some office of gain, that shall be executed by deputy and so give 
over all care of service, and become some sorry book-maker, or a true pioneer 
in that mine of truth, which, he said, lay so deep. This which I have writ 
unto your lordship, is rather thoughts than words, being set down without all 
art, disguising, or reservation : wherein I have done honour both to your lord- 
ship's wisdom, in judging that that will be best believed of your lordship which 
is truest ; and to your lordship's good nature, in retaining nothing from you." 

In a letter to the Lord Treasurer of 21st March, 1594, he says, " To speak 
plainly, though perhaps, vainly, I do not think that the ordinary practice of the 
law, not serving the Queen in place, will be admitted for a good account of the 
poor talent that God hath given me, so as I make reckoning I shall reap no 
great benefit to myself in that course." 

In a letter to Essex, March 30, 1594, he says, " I will, by God's assistance, 
with this disgrace of my fortune, and yet with that comfort of the good opinion 
of so many honourable and worthy persons, retire myself, with a couple of men, 
to Cambridge, and there spend my life in my studies and contemplations without 
looking back." 

In a letter to the Earl of Northumberland, a few days before Queen Eliza- 
beth's death, he says, " And to be plain with your lordship, it is very true, 
and no winds or noises of civil matters can blow this out of my head or heart, 
that your great capacity and love towards studies and contemplations, of a 
higher and worthier nature than popular, a nature rare in the world, and in a 



NOTE FF F. 

person of your lordship's quality almost singular, is to me a great and chief 
motive to draw my affection and admiration towards you : and therefore, good 
my lord, if I may be of any use to your lordship by my head, tongue, pen, 
means, or friends, I humbly pray you to hold me your own: and herewithal, 
not to do so much disadvantage to my good mind, nor partly to your own worth, 
as to conceive, that this commendation of my humble service produceth out of 
any straits of my occasions, but merely out of an election, and indeed the 
fulness of my heart. And so wishing your lordship all prosperity, I continue." 

In a letter to the Lord Treasurer (1594) he says, " I am to give you humble 
thanks for your favourable opinion, which by Mr. Secretary's report I find you 
conceive of me for the obtaining of a good place, which some of my honourable 
friends have wished unto me ' nee opinanti.' I will use no reason to persuade 
your lordship's mediation but this, that your lordship and my other friends shall 
in this beg my life of the Queen ; for I see well the bar will be my bier, as I 
must and will use it rather than my poor estate or reputation shall decay : but 
I stand indifferent whether God call me or her majesty." 

The following is from the dedication to the first edition of his Essays to his 
brother, who was lame : " Dedicating them, such as they are, to our love, in 
the depth whereof (I assure you) I sometimes wish your infirmities translated 
upon myself, that her majesty might have the service of so active and able a 
mind, and I might be with excuse confined to these contemplations and studies 
for which I am fittest ; so commend I you to the preservation of the Divine 
Majesty. From my chamber at Gray's Inn, this 30th of January, 1597." 

In a letter to Essex, 1594, he says : 

To my Lord of Essex. 

It may please your good Lordship, — I pray God her majesty's weighing be 
not like the weight of a balance ; gravia deorsam, levia sursum. But 1 am as 
far from being altered in devotion towards her, as I am from distrust that she 
will be altered in opinion towards me, when she knoweth me better. For my- 
self, I have lost some opinion, some time, and some means ; this is my account : 
but then for opinion, it is a blast that goeth and cometh ; for time, it is true, 
goeth and cometh not, but yet I have learned that it may be redeemed. 

For means, I value that most ; and the rather, because I am purposed not to 
follow the practice of the law, if her majesty command me in any particular, I 
shall be ready to do her willing service ; and my reason is only because it 
drinketh too much time, which I have dedicated to better purposes. But even 
for that point of estate and means, I partly lean to Thales's opinion, That a 
philosopher may be rich if he will. Thus your lordship seeth how I comfort 
myself ; to the increase whereof I would fain please myself to believe that to be 
true which my Lord Treasurer writeth ; which is, that it is more than a philoso- 
pher can morally digest. But without any such high conceit, I esteem it like 
the pulling out of an aching tooth, which, I remember, when I was a child, 
and had little philosophy, I was glad of when it was done. For your lordship, 
I do think myself more beholden to you than to any man : and I say, I reckon 
myself as a common, not popular, but common ; and as much as is lawful to be 
inclosed of a common, so much your lordship shall be sure to have. Your 
Lordship's, to obey your honourable commands, more settled than ever. 

In a letter to the King, dated April 1, 1616, he says, " Were your majesty 
mounted, and seated without difficulties and distaste in your business, as I 
desire and hope to see you, I should ' ex animo' desire to spend the decline of 
my years in my studies." 

In a letter to the Earl of Salisbury respecting the solicitor's place, written 
about the year 1607, he says, " It is thought Mr. Attorney shall be chief jus- 
tice of the Common-place ; in case Mr. Solicitor rise, I would be glad now 
at last to be solicitor : chiefly because I think it will increase my practice, 
wherein God blessing me a few years, I may mend my state, and so after fall 
to my studies and ease ; whereof one is requisite for my body, and the other 
serveth for my mind." 



NOTE II H II. 



Upon taking his seat in Chancery, having explained his intention as to his 
mode of discharging his judicial duties, he says, " The depth of the three long 
vacations I would reserve in some measure free from business of estate, and for 
studies, arts, and sciences, to which in my own nature I am most inclined." 



NOTE HHH. 

Towards his rising years, not before, he entered into a married estate, and 
took to wife, Alice, one of the daughters and co-heirs of Benedict Barnham, Esq. 
and alderman of London, with whom he received a sufficiently ample and liberal 
portion in marriage. Children he had none : which, though they be the means 
to perpetuate our names after our deaths ; yet he had other issues to perpetuate 
his name : the issues of his brain ; in which he was ever happy and admired ; 
as Jupiter was in the production of Pallas. Neither did the want of children 
detrast from his good usage of his consort, during the intermarriage ; whom he 
prosecuted with much conjugal love and respect, with many rich gifts and endow- 
ments, besides a robe of honour which he invested her withal, which she wore 
until her dying day, being twenty years and more after his death. Rawley. 

Mallet's life, page xlix. He continued single till after forty, and then took 
to wife a daughter of Alderman Barnham of London, with whom he received a 
plentiful fortune, but had by her no children ; and she outlived him upwards of 
twenty years. 

The following is from Lord Bacon's will : Devises and legacies to my wife, 
I give grant and confirm to my loving wife by this my last will, whatsoever hath 
been assured to her, or mentioned or intended to be assured to her by any 
former deed, be it either my lands in Hertfordshire, or the farm of the seal, or 
the gift of goods in accomplishment of my covenants of marriage ; and I give 
her also the ordinary stuff at Gorhambury, as wainscot tables stools, bedding, and 
the like ; always reserving and excepting the rich hangings with their covers, 
the table carpets, and the long cushions, and all other stuff which was or is 
used in the long gallery; and also a rich chair which was my neice Caesar's 
gift, and also the armour, and also all tables of marble and towch : I give also 
to my wife my four coach geldings and my best caroache, and her own coach 
mares and caroache : I give also and grant to my wife the one half of the rent 
which was reserved upon Reades lease for her life ; which rent although I in- 
tended to her merely for her better maintenance while she lived at her own 
charge, and not to continue after my death, yet because she has begun to receive 
it, I am content to continue it to her ; and I conceive by this advancement, which 
first and last, I have left her, besides her own inheritance, I have made her of 
competent abilities to maintain the estate of a viscountess, and given sufficient 
tokens of my love and liberality towards her ; for I do reckon (and that with the 
least) that Gorhambury and my lands in Hertfordshire, will be worth unto her 
seven hundred pounds per annum besides Woodfells and the leases of the houses, 
whereof five hundred pounds per annum only I was tied unto my covenants upon 
marriage ; so as the two hundred pounds and better was mere benevolence ; 
the six hundred pounds per annum upon the farm of the writs was likewise mere 
benevolence ; her own inheritance also, with that she purchased with part of her 
portion, is two hundred pounds per annum and better, besides the wealth she 
has in jewels, plate or otherwise, wherein I was never straight handed. All 
which I here set down, not because I think it too much, but because others may 
not think it less than it is. 

What was Bacon's motive for this bequest it seems difficult to discover, for in 
the very same will there is the following clause : " Whatsoever I have given, 
granted, confirmed, or appointed to my wife, in the former part of this my will, 
I do now for just and great causes utterly revoke and make void, and leave her 
to her right only." 

It was not, without some difficulty, that I discovered the place where Lady 
Veiulam is buried. 

Newcomb in his history of St. Albans, page 503, says, " He married Alice, 
a daughter of Benedict Barnham, alderman of London, who is interred (as a 



NOTE HIIII. 

marble tablet shews) in the cathedral of Chichester ; and whose other daughter 
was the unfortunate wife of the Lord Castlehaven ; who for his ill-treatment of 
her was with his accomplice hanged." 

In consequence of this statement, I applied to a friend at Chichester. The 
following is the answer : " Our cathedral contains the ashes not of Lady Bacon, 
but of her grandmother, who, as well as her daughter and Lady Bacon bore the 
name of Alice, and hence I suppose whoever furnished ' the paper' referred to, 
was led into a very natural mistake. There is in the south aisle of the cathedral 
a mural tablet, of brass, hideous enough and coarsely engraved. It represents 
two figures kneeling. The man in the robes of an alderman with six sons also 
kneeling behind him, the woman in the dress of the times with her eight daughters 
ranged behind her, perhaps this goodly patriarchal train moved the sympathy of 
Cromwell's soldiers, who laid violent hands on monuments of this description, 
but to keep to the point, these figures as the inscription testifies, are those of 
William Bradbridge, thrice mayor of this city, and Alice his wife attended by 
their whole family. One of the eight daughters named Alice, married Francis 
barnham, alderman and sheriff of London. She became a widow, and erected 
this monument which was finished in July 1592. In December 1598, Alice 
Barnham bequeathed 120/. to be freely lent to young tradesmen of this city. 
In this bequest she is mentioned as the mother of Stephen Barnham, then repre- 
sentative for Chichester. It appears to me, that the Alice who married Lord 
Bacon, must have been the sister of Stephen Barnham, and that the idea of 
interment here may have arisen from the name of their mother Alice Barnham, 
the erectress of the tablet being inscribed on it. If this be correct would not the 
Bradbridge arms be quartered with those of Bacon ? Dallaway gives them thus : 
' Arms, sable, a pheon argent, Bradbridge.' In Dallaway's Western Sussex, 
page 138, of the History and Antiquities of Chichester, may be found the 
inscription verbatim, of which I have given the substance. I shewed your letter 
to one of our clergyman, Holland, the brother-in-law of Murray the bookseller, 
the cathedral is his ' Great Diana/ and I thought he would know as much about 
it as any one, also to others, they all agree with me in thinking the case to be 
probably as above supposed." 

Lysons Magna Brittannia, Bedfordshire, page 83. Eyworth, on the borders 
of Cambridgeshire, about three miles from Potton, and five from Biggleswade. 

In the reign of Elizabeth, Eyworth was the property and seat of Sir Edmund 
Anderson, Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas ; a man of considerable 
eminence in his profession, and one of the judges who sat at the trial of Mary 
Queen of Scots. In the church are sereral monuments of the Andersons. On 
the floor of the chancel is the tomb of Alice, Viscountess Verulam, and Baroness 
St. Alban's, widow of the great Lord Chancellor Bacon, who died in 1656, 
probably at the house of Mr. Anderson, to whom she was related. 

My Dear Sir, — Probably the annexed may be new to you, and if so, cannot 
fail of being interesting as connected with an object dear to your feelings, 

Yours very truly, J. Britton. 
To Basil Montagu, Esq. 

Close to the church at Eyworth was an ancient mansion, belonging to Sir 
Edmund Anderson, Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, one of the 
Judges who sat on the trial of Mary Queen of Scots. The title became extinct 
in 1773. Was Lady Bacon related to the Andersons ? the house is levelled to 
the ground, but several terraces, moats, and garden walls, are evidences of its 
former consequence. 

Lady Bacon. 

In the chancel of Eyworth Church, Bedfordshire, is a slab of grey marble on 
the floor, much injured, liable to speedy destruction, thus inscribed : 

Here lieth interred the body of Dame Alice, Baroness Verulam, 
Viscountess St. Albans, one of the daughters of Benedict 
Barnham, alderman of London. She departed this life the 29th 
day of June, A. D. 1650. 



NOTES TTT J J J. 



NOTE TTT. 

Pro eodem Francisco Bacon Milite. "Rex omnibus ad quos, &c. Salutem. 
Rymer, Tom. xvi. page 596. 

Sciatis quod nos, tarn in consideratione boni fidelis et acceptabilis servitii, 
per nuper dilectum nostrum Antonium Bacon Armigerum defunctum, fratrem 
germanum Francisci Bacon militis servientis nostri, ac etiam per dilectum 
serviensem nostrum praedictum Franciscum Bacon militem prsestiti et impensi, 
quam pro deversis aliis causis et considerationibus ad noc nos specialiter 
moventibus. 

De gratia nostra speciali, ac ex certa scientia et mero motu nostris, dedimus 
et concessimus, ac per praesentes, pro nobis haeredibus et successoribus nostris, 
damus et concedimus praefato Francisco Bacon quandam annualem pensionem 
sexaginta librarum bona? et legalis monetae angliae per annum, solvendam annu- 
atim eidem Francisco Bacon ad festa sancti Michaelis Archangeli et paschae per 
aequales portiones, de thesauro nostro baeredum et successorum nostrorum, per 
manus thesaurarii et camerarionum ibidem pro tempore existentium, prima 
solutione inde incipienda ad testum testorum praedictorum proximum post datam 
praesentium. 

Habendam et tenendam gaudendam et percipiendam annualem pensionem 
praedictam, duranti vita, naturali praedicti Francisci Bacon. 

In cujus rei, &c. Teste Rege apud Harfeild vicesimo quinto die Augusti. — 
Per breve de privato sigillo. 

NOTE J J J. 

The following are passages from the king's speech. 
As to the union. 

Hath not God first united these two kingdoms, both in language and religion, 
and similitude of manners 1 yea, hath he not made us all in one island, com- 
passed with one sea, and of itself by nature so indivisible, as almost those that 
were borderers themselves on the late borders, cannot distinguish, nor know, or 
discern their own limits 1 these two countries being separated neither by sea, nor 
great river, mountain, nor other strength of nature, but only by little small brooks, 
or demolished little walls, so as rather they were divided in apprehension, than 
in effect ; and now in the end and fulness of time united, the right and title of 
both in my person, alike lineally descended of both the crowns, whereby it is now 
become a little world within itself. 

As to Religion. 

Nay, my mind was ever so free from persecution, or inthralling of my subjects 
in matters of conscience, as I hope those of that profession within this kingdom 
have a proof since my coming, that I was so far from increasing their burthens 
with Rehoboam, as I have so much as either time, occasion, or law could permit, 
lightened them. And even now at this time, have I been careful to revise and 
consider deeply upon the laws made against them, that some overture might be 
made to the present parliament for clearing these laws by reason (which is the soul 
of the law) in case they have been in times past, further, or more rigorously ex- 
tended by judges, than the meaning of the law was, or might. And this sort of 
people, I would be sorry to punish their bodies for the error of their minds, the 
reformation whereof must only come of God and the true spirit. And here I have 
occasion to speak to you, my lords the bishops ; for as you my lord of Durham, 
said very learnedly to day in your sermon, correction without instruction is but 
tyranny : so ought you, and all the clergy under you, to be more careful, vigilant 
and careful than you have been, to win souls to God, as well by your exemplary 
life, as doctrine. And since you see how careful they are, sparing neither 
labour, pains, nor extreme peril of their persons, to pervert (the devil is so 



NOTE QQQ. 

busy a bishop ;) (a) ye should be the more careful, and wakeful in your charges. 
Follow the rule prescribed to you by St. Paul, be careful to exalt and instruct, 
in season, and out of season : and where you have been any way sluggish 
before, now waken yourselves up again with a new diligence, remitting the suc- 
cess to God, who calling them either at the second, third, tenth, or twelfth hour, 
as they are alike welcome to him, so shall they be to me his lieutenant here. 

NOTE QQQ. 

Plutarch in his Morals, says, " You have naturally a philosophical genius, 
and are troubled to see a philosopher have no kindness for the study of medicine. 
You are uneasy that he should think it concerns him more to study geometry, 
logic, and music, than to be desirous to understand whether the fabrick of his 
body as well as his houses be well or ill designed. Now among all the liberal 
arts, medicine does not only contain so neat and large a field of pleasure as to 
give place to none, but plentifully pays the charges of those who delight in the 
study of her with health and safety : so that it ought not to be called the trans- 
gression of the bounds of a philosopher to dispute about those things which relate 
to health." 

The following extract is from Dr. Garnet's Lectures. 

u Physiological ignorance is, undoubtedly, the most abundant source of our 
sufferings ; every person accustomed to the sick must have heard them deplore 
their ignorance of the necessary consequences of those practices, by which their 
health has been destroyed : and when men shall be deeply convinced, that the 
eternal laws of nature have connected pain and decrepitude with one mode of 
life, and health and vigour with another, they will avoid the former and adhere 
to the latter. It is strange, however, to observe that the generality of mankind 
do not seem to bestow a single thought on the preservation of their health, till it 
is too late to reap any benefit from their conviction. — If knowledge of this kind 
were generally diffused, people would cease to imagine that the human constitu- 
tion was so badly contrived, that a state of general health could be overset by 
every trifle ; for instance, by a little cold ; or that the recovery of it lay con- 
cealed in a few drops, or a pill. Did they better understand the nature of 
chronic diseases, and the causes which produce them, they could not be so un- 
reasonable as to think, that they might live as they chose with impunity ; or did 
they know any thing of medicine, they would soon be convinced, that though 
fits of pain have been relieved, and sickness cured, for a time, the re-establish- 
ment of health depends on very different powers and principles." 

Sir "William Temple, in his Essay upon the Cure of the Gout by Moxa, says, 
" Within these fifteen years past, I have known a great fleet disabled for two 
months, and thereby lose great occasions, by an indisposition of the admiral, 
while he was neither well enough to exercise, nor ill enough to leave the com- 
mand. I have known two towns of the greatest consequence, lost contrary to all 
forms, by the governors falling ill in the time of the sieges. 

" I have observed the fate of Campania determine contrary to all appearances, 
by the caution and conduct of a general, which were atttributed by those that 
knew him, to his age and infirmities, rather than his own true qualities, acknow- 
ledged otherwise to have been as great as most men of the age. I have seen 
the counsels of a noble country grow bold or timorous, according to the fits of 
his good or ill health that managed them, and the pulse of the government beat 
high or low with that of the governor. And this unequal conduct makes way 
for great accidents in the world : nay, I have often reflected upon the counsels 
and fortunes of the greatest monarchies rising and decaying sensibly with the 
ages and healths of the princes and chief officers that governed them. And I 
remember one greatminister that confessed to me, when he fell into one of his usual 
fits of the gout, he was no longer able to bend his mind or thoughts to any public 
business, nor give audiences beyond two or three of his own domestics, though 



(a) See a sermon of Latimer's. 



NOTES RRR — WWW. 

it were to save a kingdom ; and that this proceeded not from any violence of 
pain, but from a general languishing and faintness of spirits, which made him 
in those fits think nothing worth the trouble of one careful or solicitous thought. 
For the approaches or lurkings of the gout, the spleen, or the scurvy, nay, the 
very fumes of indigestion, may indispose men to thought and to care, as well as 
diseases of danger and pain. 

" Thus accidents of health grow to be accidents of state, and public constitu- 
tions come to depend in a great measure, upon those of particular men ; which 
makes it perhaps seem necessary in the choice of persons for great employments 
(at least such as require constant application and pains) to consider their bodies 
as well as their minds, and ages and health as well as their abilities." 

Whether information upon Latin and Greek or upon the art of preserving 
health, will, at some future time, be ascertained, with great respect for a know- 
ledge of languages, I should prefer to all these attainments, a knowledge of the 
mode of preserving health. The air we breathe ; the food we take ; our exercise 
and rest ; our sleep. 

Each of these subjects is of great importance, and so wholly neglected in our 
education, that the very name of them is changed, and they are termed by 
medical men " non-naturals." 

As the word nervous, which used to express strength, has now changed its 
meaning, and is used as an expression of aspen-leaf debility, or as the yew tree, 
planted in churchyards, as a symbol of perpetual life, is called by us in return, 
" the melancholy yew." 

NOTE RRR. 

All his juvenile tracts are without imagery, and so are his Novum Organum, 
and tract upon universal jnstice. That imagery followed in the train of his 
reason, and was used chiefly if not solely to illustrate his reasoning, see his expla- 
nation of mistaking the motive for acquiring knowledge. See vol. ii. p. 51. 

Arrangement. — In the Advancement of Learning, distinguished as it is for its 
symmetry, in explaining the causes of the evil of method, he says, " for as 
young men, when they knit and shape perfectly, do seldom grow to a further 
stature, so knowledge, whilst it is dispersed into aphorisms and observations, 
may grow and shoot up : but once entered and comprehended in methods, it may, 
perchance, be farther polished and fashioned and accommodated for use and 
practice, but increaseth no more in bulk and substance." 

NOTE WWW. 

Seneca says, " The grammarian's business lies in a syntax of speech ; or, if 
he proceed to history, or the measuring of a verse, he is at the end of his line ; 
but what signifies a congruity of periods, the computing of syllables, or the 
modifying of numbers, to the taming of our passions, or the repressing of our 
lusts 1 The philosopher proves the body of the sun to be large, but for the true 
dimensions of it we must ask the mathematician ; geometry and music, if they 
do not teach us to master our hopes and fears, all the rest is to little purpose. 
What does it concern us which was the elder of the two, Homer or Hesiod ; or 
which was the taller, Helen or Hecuba? We take a great deal of pains to 
trace Ulysses in his wanderings ; but were it not time as well spent to look to 
ourselves, that we may not wander at all. Are not we ourselves tossed with 
tempestuous passions ; and both assaulted by terrible monsters on the one hand, 
and tempted by syrens on the other 1" 

" You," says Lord Shaftsbury, " who are skilled in other fabrics and compo- 
sitions both of art and nature, have you considered of the fabric of the mind, 
the constitution of the soul, the connexion and frame of all its passions and 
affections, to know accordingly the order and symmetry of each part ; and how 
it either improves or suffers ; what its force is, when naturally preserved in its 
sound state, and what becomes of it when corrupted and abused? Till this (my 
friend) be well examined and understood, how shall we judge either of the force 



NOTE WWW. 

of virtue or power of vice, or in what manner either of these may work to our 
happiness or undoing 1 Here, therefore, is that inquiry we should first make. 
But who is there can afford to make it as he ought 1 If happily we are born of 
a good nature ; if a liberal education has formed in us a generous temper and 
disposition, well regulated appetites and worthy inclinations, it is well for us ; 
and so indeed we esteem it. But who is there endeavours to give these to 
himself, or to advance his portion of happiness in this kind? Who thinks of 
improving, or so much as of preserving his share, in a world where it must of 
necessity run so great a hazard, and where we know an honest nature is so easily 
corrupted ? All other things relating to us are preserved with care, and have 
some art or economy belonging to them : this, which is nearest related to us, 
and on which our happiness depends, is alone committed to chance; and temper 
is the only thing ungoverned. whilst it governs all the rest. — Thus we inquire 
concerning what is good and suitable to our appetites, but what appetites are 
good and suitable to us, is no part of our examination. We inquire what is 
according to interest, policy, fashion, vogue ; but it seems wholly strange and 
out of the way to inquire what is according to nature. The balance of Europe, 
of trade, of power, is strictly sought after; while few have heard of the balance 
of their passions, or ever thought of holding these scales even." 

" We all meditate," says Bishop Hall, " one, how to do ill to others : 
another, how to do some earthly good to himself: another, to hurt himself under 
a colour of good. Or perhaps, some better minds bend their thoughts upon the 
search of natural things ; the motions of every heaven, and of every star : the 
reason and course of the ebbing and flowing of the sea : the manifold kinds of 
simples that grow out of the earth and creatures that creep upon it, with all 
their strange qualities and operations : or, perhaps, the several forms of govern- 
ment and rules of state take up their busy heads : so that, while they would be 
acquainted with the whole world, they are strangers at home ; and while they 
seek to know all other things, they remain unknown to themselves." 

Burton says, " We spend our days in unprofitable questions and disputations, 
intricate subtleties, about moonshine in the water, leaving in the mean time 
those chiefest treasures of nature untouched, wherein the best medicines for all 
manner of diseases are to be found; and do not only neglect them ourselves, 
but hinder, condemn, forbid, and scoff at others that are willing to inquire after 
them." 

'* But whether thus these things, or whether not : 

Whether the sun, predominant in heaven, 

Rise on the earth, or earth rise on the sun : 

He from the east his flaming road begin, 

Or she from west her silent course advance 

With inoffensive pace, that spinning sleeps 

On her soft axle, while she paces even, 

And bears thee soft with the smooth air along, 

Solicit not thy thoughts with matters hid : 

Leave them to God above, him serve and fear : 

Of other creatures, as him pleases best, 

Wherever placed, let him dispose : joy then 

In what he gives to thee, this Paradise 

And thy fair Eve : — Heaveu is for thee too high 

To know what passes there : be lowly wise : 

Think only what concerns thee and thy being." 

Paradise Lost, b. viii. 

Teach me my duty to my country, to my father, to my wife, to mankind. 
What is it to me, whether Penelope was honest or no? Teach me to know 
how to be so myself, and to live according to that knowledge. What am I the 
better for putting so many parts together in music, and raising an harmony out 
of so many different tones. Teach me to tune my affections, and to hold con- 
stant to myself. Geometry teaches me the art of measuring acres ; teach me to- 
measure my appetites, and to know when I have enough : teach me to divide 

vol. xv. 20 



NOTES Y Y Y Z Z Z. 

with my brother, and to rejoice in the prosperity of my neighbour. You teach 
me how I may hold my own, and keep my estate ; but I would rather learn 
how I may lose it all, and yet be contented. It is hard, you will say, for a 
man to be forced from the fortune of his family. This estate, it is true, was 
my father's; but whose was it in the time of my great-grandfather 1 I do not 
only say, What man's was it? but, what nation's? The astrologer tells me of 
Saturn and Mars in opposition ; but I say, let them be as they will, their 
courses and their positions are ordered them by an unchangeable decree of fate. 
Either they produce, and point out the effects of all things, or else they signify 
them : if the former, what are we the better for the knowledge of that which 
must of necessity come to pass ? If the latter, what does it avail us to foresee 
what we cannot avoid 1 So that, whether we know or not know, the event will 
still be the same.-r-Seneca. 

NOTE YYY. 

" Men carry their minds as they carry their watches, content to be ignorant 
of the mechanism of their movements, and satisfied with attending to the little 
exterior circle of things, to which the passions, like indexes, are pointing. It is 
surprising to see how little self-knowledge a person not watchfully observant of 
himself may have gained in the whole course of an active, or even an inquisitive 
life. He may have lived almost an age, and traversed a continent, minutely 
examining its curiosities, and interpreting the half obliterated characters on its 
monuments, unconscious the while of a process operating on his own mind to 
impress or to erase characteristics of much more importance to him than all the 
figured brass or marble that Europe contains. After having explored many a 
cavern or dark ruinous avenue, he may have left undetected a darker recess in 
his character. He may have conversed with many people in different lan- 
guages, on numberless subjects ; but having neglected those conversations with 
himself by which his whole moral being should have been kept continually dis- 
closed to his view, he is better qualified perhaps to describe the intrigues of a 
foreign court, or the progress of a foreign trade ; to represent the manners of 
the Italians or the Turks ; to narrate the proceedings of the Jesuits, or the 
adventures of the gypsies, than to write the history of his own mind." 

Foster's Essays, p. 6, 4th ed. 

NOTE ZZZ. 

Foster says, " And perhaps still less regard will be paid to it, if it be consi- 
dered that the King, who appeareth to have had the success of the prosecution 
much at heart, and took a part in it unbecoming the majesty of the crown, con- 
descended to instruct his attorney general with regard to the proper measures to 
be taken in the examination of the defendant ; that the attorney at his majesty's 
command submitted to the drudgery of sounding the opinions of the judges 
upon the point of law, before it was thought advisable to risk it at an open 
trial ; that the judges were to be sifted separately and soon, before they could 
have an opportunity of conferring together ; and that for this purpose four 
gentlemen of the profession in the service of the crown were immediately dis- 
patched, one to each of the judges ; Mr. Attorney himself undertaking to prac- 
tice upon the Chief Justice, of whom some doubt was then entertained. Is it 
possible that a gentleman of Bacon's great talents could submit to a service so 
much below his rank and character ! But he did submit to it, and acquitted 
himself notably in it. 

" Avarice, I think, was not his ruling passion. But whenever a false ambi- 
tion, ever restless and craving, overheated in the pursuit of the honours which 
the crown alone can confer, happeneth to stimulate an heart otherwise formed 
for great and noble pursuits, it hath frequently betrayed it into measures full as 
mean as avarice itself could have suggested to the wretched animals who die 
under its dominion. For these passions, however they may seem to be at 
variance, have ordinarily produced the same effects. Both degrade the man, 



NOTES 7 7 Z A A A A . 

both contract his views into the little point of self-interest, and equally steel the 
heart against the rebukes of conscience, or the sense of true honour. 

" Bacon, having undertaken the service, informeth his majesty in a letter 
addressed to him, that with regard to three of the judges whom he nameth, he 
had small doubt of their concurrence. ' Neither,' saith he, ' am I wholly out 
of hope, that my Lord Coke himself, when I have in some dark manner put him 
in doubt that he shall be left alone, will not continue singular/ These are 
plain naked facts, they need no comment. Every reader will make his own 
reflections upon them. I have but one to make in this place. This method of 
forestalling the judgment of a court in a case of blood then depending, at a time 
too when the judges were removeable at the pleasure of the crown, doth no 
honour to the persons concerned in a transaction so insidious and unconsti- 
tutional, and at the same time greatly weakeneth the authority of the judg- 
ment." 

In a tract entitled An Enquiry into the conduct of a late Right Honourable 
Commoner, 4th edit. Lond. 1766, 8vo. p. 1, the same observation is thus 
repeated : " In the tide of almost every great man's life there is commonly one 
period, which is not only more remarkable than the rest, but conveys with it 
strong characteristic marks of the complexion of him to whom it belongs. Thus 
the great Bacon, when he saw the only road to preferment was through Buck- 
ingham, attached himself to that favourite, and undertook to second the views 
of the crown. We read of his excessive pliancy in transactions wholly below 
his rank and character ; particularly several attempts to corrupt and bias the 
judges in causes which the King or his minister had much at heart. ' Avarice,' 
says Mr. Justice Foster (who in his discourse on high treasou has recorded 
these instances of his baseness) , ' I think, was not his ruling passion. But, 
whenever a false ambition, ever lestless and craving, over- heated in the pursuit 
of the honours which the crown alone can confer, happeneth to stimulate an 
heart otherwise formed for great and noble pursuits, it hath frequently betrayed 
it into measures full as mean as avarice itself could have suggested to the 
wretched animals who live and die under her dominion. For these passions, 
however they may seem to be at variance, have ordinarily produced the same 
effects. Both degrade the man ; both contract his views into the little point of 
self-interest, and equally steel the heart against the rebukes of conscience, or 
the sense of true honour.' Whoever is at the pains of reading Bacon's life, will 
find that from the moment of his attaching himself to Villiers, Duke of Buck- 
ingham, his character takes a new turn. We see no more of the firm friend, 
nor honest man ; both are sunk in the scandalous instrument of a favourite, 
without honour, and of a court without veracity; and Villiers and he were 
afterwards impeached by the Commons. The King indeed endeavoured to save 
Villiers ; but Bacon was sacrificed. It is true he had been made a lord, but 
he was sequestered from parliament ; and the pangs of his conscience were 
evidenced by every passage of his future life." 

NOTE AAAA. 

Biographia, p. 3853. — He lived in a private frugal manner, being resolved to 
dispose of his great estate in some important charity. But before he had fixed 
upon any particular plan for carrying that design into execution, he was greatly 
alarmed in the year 1608, with the news of a design to raise him to the peerage, 
in the view of laying him thereby under an obligation to make King Charles I. 
then Duke of York, his heir. Upon the first notice that came to his ears of 
this project, he immediately put a stop to it. (a) 

(a) The project was laid before King James by Sir John Harrison, who had 
proposed it to Mr. Sutton ; but as soon as he heard what was doing at court, he 
dispatched the following letter to the Lord Chancellor Ellesmere and the Lord 
Treasurer Salisbury, both feoffees for his intended hospital : 

" May it please your Lordships, — I understand that his majesty is possessed 



SOTE BRBB, 



NOTE BBBB. 



Upon the first day of the term, when he was to take his place in court, he de- 
clined the attendance of his great friends, who offered, as the manner was, to 
bring him to his first settling with a pomp of an inauguration. But he set out early 
in the morning with the company of the judges and some few more, and passing 
through the cloisters into the Abbey, he carried them with him into the chapel 
of Henry the Seventh, where he prayed on his knees (silently, but very devoutly, 
as might be seen by his gesture) almost a quarter of an hour; then rising up 
cheerfully, he was conducted with no other train, to a mighty confluence that 
expected him in the hall, whom from the bench of the court of Chancery, he 
greeted with this speech. 

" My Lords and Gentlemen all, I would to God my former course of life had 
so qualified me for this great place (wherein by the will of God and the special 
favour of the King I am for a time to bestow myself) that I might have fallen 
to my business without any farther preface or salutation, especially considering, 
that, as the orator observes, Id ipsum dicere nunquam sit non ineptum, nisi 
cusu est necessarium. This kind of orationing hath ever a tincture of levity, if 
it be not occasioned by some urgent necessity. For my own part, I am as far 
from affecting this speech, as I was from the ambition of this place ; but having 
found by private experience that sudden and unexpected eruptions put all the 
world into a gaze and wonderment, I thought it most convenient to break the 
ice with this short deliberation, which T will limit to these two heads : my calling, 
and my carriage in this place of judicature. 

" For my calling unto this office, it was (as most here present cannot but 
know) not the cause, but the effect of a resolution in the state, to change or 
reduce the governor of this court from a professor of our municipal laws to some 
one of the nobility, gentry, or clergy of this kingdom. Of such a conclusion of 
state (quae aliquando incognita semper justa), as I dare not take upon me to 
discover the cause, so I hope I shall not endure the envy. Peradventure the 
managing of this court of equity doth Recipere magis et minus, and is as soon 
diverted with too much as too little law. Surely those worthy lords, which to 
their eternal fame, for the most part of an hundred years governed and honoured 



by Sir John Harrington, or by some other by his means, that 1 intend to make 
his highness's son, the Duke of York, my heir; whereupon, as it is reported, 
his highness proposeth to bestow the honour of a baron on me ; whereof as I am 
most unworthy, so I vow to God and your lordships, I never harboured the 
least thought or proud desire of any such matter. My mind, in my younger 
times, hath been ever free from ambition ; and now I am going to my grave, to 
gape for such a thing were mere dotage in me, so unworthy also, as I confess 
unto your lordships. That this knight hath been often tampering with me to 
that purpose, to entertain honour, and to make the noble duke my heir, is true ; 
to whom I made that answer, as, had he either wit or honesty (with reverence 
to your lordships be it spoken), he never would have engaged himself in this 
business, so egregiously to delude his majesty, and wrong me. My humble 
suit unto your lordships is, that considering this occasion hath brought me into 
question, and in his hazard of his highness's displeasure, having never given 
Sir John Harrington, or any man living, either promise or semblance to do any 
such act, but upon his motions grew into utter dislike with him for such idle 
speeches, your lordships will vouchsafe me this favour, to inform his highness 
aright, how things have proceeded directly without my privity; and withal, that 
my trust is in his gracious disposition, not to conceit the worse of me for other 
men's follies ; but that I may have free liberty with his princely leave, wherein 
I rest most assured, to dispose of my own, as other his majesty's loyal subjects. 
And so, most humbly recommending my duty and service to your lordships, 
for the increase of whose honours and happiness I shall ever pray, I rest, 

" Your Lordship's poor beadsman, Thomas Sutton." 



NOTE BBBB. 

this noble court; as they equalled many of their own profession in the know- 
ledge of the laws, so did they excel the most of all other professions in learning, 
wisdom, gravity, and mature experience. In such a case, it were but poor phi- 
losophy to restrain those effects to the former, which were produced and brought 
forth by those latter endowments. Examine them all, and you shall find them 
in their several ages to have the commendation of the completest men, but not 
of the deepest lawyers. I except only that mirror of our age and glory of his 
profession, my reverenced master, who was as eminent in the universal, as any 
other one of them all in his choicest particular. Sparguntur in omnes, uno hoc 
mista fluunt, et quae diversa beatos efficiunt, conjuncta tenet. Again, it may 
be, the continual practice of the strict law, without a special mixture of other 
knowledge, makes a man unapt and undisposed for a court of equity. Juris 
consultus ipse per se nihil nisi lugubrius quidam cantus et acutus, as M. Crassus 
w 7 as wont to define him. They are (and that cannot be otherwise) of the same 
profession with the rhetorics at Rome, as much used to defend the wrong, as to 
protect and maintain the most upright cause. And if any of them should prove 
corrupt, he carries about him, armatam nequitiam, that skill and cunning to 
palliate the same, that that mis-sentence, which pronounced by a plain and 
understanding man would appear most gross and palpable, by their colours, 
quotations, and wrenches of the law, would be made to pass for current and 
specious. Some will add hereunto the boldness and confidence, which their 
former clients will take upon them, when, as St. Austin speaks in another case, 
they find the man to be their judge, who was the other day their hired advocate. 
Marie that, depraedandi memoria, as St. Jerom calls it, that proneness to take 
money, as accustomed to fees, is but a base and scandalous aspersion, and as 
incident to the divine, if he want the fear of God, as to the common lawyer, or 
most sordid artizan. But that that former breeding and education in the strict- 
ness of law might (without good care and integrity) somewhat indispose a 
practiser thereof for the rule and government of a court of equity, I learned long 
ago from Plinius Secundus, a most excellent lawyer in his time, and a man of 
singular rank in the Roman estate ; for in his second, third, and sixth epistles, 
making comparison between the scholastici, as he calls them, which were 
gentlemen of the better sort, bred up privately in feigned pleadings and schools 
of eloquence, for the qualifying of themselves for civil employments, and another 
sort of gentlemen, termed forenses, who were pleaders at the bar, and trained 
up in real causes : he makes the former more innocent and harmless a great 
deal than the latter, and yields hereof the principal reason, Nos enim, qui in 
foro verisque litibus terimur, multum matitiae, quamvis nolimus, addiscimus. 
For we, saith he, that are bred in real quirks and personal contentions, cannot 
but reserve some fang thereof, whether we will or no. These reasons, though 
they please some men, yet, God be praised, if we do but right to this noble pro- 
fession, there are in our commonwealth no way concluding or demonstrative ; 
for I make no question, but there are many scores which profess our laws, who, 
beside their skill and practice in this kind, are so richly enabled in all moral 
and intellectual endowments, Ut omnia tanquam singula preficiant, that there is 
no court of equity in the world but might be most safely committed unto them. 
I leave, therefore, the reason of this alteration as a reason of state not to be 
fathomed by any reason of mine, and will say no more of my calling in the 
general. 

" Now when I reflect upon myself in particular, Quis sum ego? aut quis 
filius Ishai ? What am I, or what can there be in me in regard of knowledge, 
gravity, or experience, that should afford me the least qualification in the world 
for so'weighty a place 1 Surely, if a sincere, upright, and well meaning heart 
doth not cover thousands of other imperfections, I am the unfittest man in the 
kingdom to supply the place. And therefore must say of my creation, as the 
poet said of the creation of the world, Materiam noti quaerere, nulla fuit. 
Trouble not your heads to find out the cause, I confess there was none at all. 
It was, (without the least inclination or thought of mine own) the immediate 
work of God and my king. And their actions are no ordinary effects, but ex- 
tiaordinary miracles. What then? should 1 beyond the limits and duty of 



NOTIi BBBB. 

obedience despond, and refuse to make some few years trial in this place 1 
Nor, Tuus, O Jacobe, quod optas explorare labor, mihi jussa capessere fas est. I 
will therefore conclude this point with the excuse of that poet, whom the Em- 
peror Gratian would needs enforce to set out his poem, whether he would or no, 
Non habeo ingenium, Caesar sed jussit habebo. Cur mue posse negem, posse 
quod ille putet. I am no way fit for this great place, but because God and the 
king will have it so, I will endeavour, as much as I can, to make myself fit, and 
put my whole confidence in his grace and mercy, Qui neminem dignum eligit, 
sed eligendo dignum facit, as St. Austin speaks. And so much of my calling, 
now I come unto my carriage in this place. 

" It is an observation which fully makes, In causis direndis effugere solebat 
Antonius, ne succederet Crasso. Antonius was ever afraid to come after 
Crassus, a most eloquent and powerful orator. And the greatest discouragement 
I find in this place is, that I am to come after (after, indeed, nee passibus aequis) 
my two immediate predecessors, the one of them excellent in most things, the 
other in all things. But both of them so bred in this course of life, Ut illis 
plurimarum rerum agitatio frequens, nihil esse ignotum patiebatur : as Pliny 
speaks of the pleaders of his times. It were too much to expect at my hands, a 
man bred in other studies, that readiness, or quickness, or dispatch which was 
effected by them, Lords, both of them brought up in the King's courts, and not 
in the King's chapel. My comfort is this, that arriving here as a stranger, I may 
say as Archimedes did when he found those geometrical lines and angles drawn 
everywhere in the sands of Egypt, Video vestigia humana : I see in this court 
the footsteps of wise men, many excellent rules and orders for the managing the 
same, the which, though I might want learning and knowledge to invent, (if 
they were not thus offered to my hands) yet I hope I shall not want the honesty 
to act and put in execution, these rules I will precisely follow, without the 
least deflexion at all, until experience shall teach me better. Every thing by 
the course of nature hath a certain and regular motion. The air and fire still 
upward, the earth and water fall downward : The celestial bodies whirl about 
in one and the self same course and circularity, and so should every court of 
justice, otherwise it grows presently to be had in jealousy and suspicion. Tol- 
as Vel. Paterculus observes very well, In iis homines extraordinaria reformi- 
dant, qui modum in voluntate habent. Men ever suspect the worst of those 
rules which vary, with the judge's will and pleasure. I will descend to some 
few particulars. 

" First, I will never make any decree that shall cross the grounds of the 
common or statute laws ; for I hold by my place the custody not of mine own, 
but of the King's conscience : and it were most absurd to let the King's con- 
science be at enmity and opposition with his laws and statutes. This court (as 
I conceive it) may be often occasioned to open and confirm, but never to 
thwart and oppose the grounds of the laws. I will therefore omit no pains of 
mine own, nor conference with the learned judges, to furnish myself with com- 
petency of knowledge, to keep my resolution in this point firm and inviolable. 
Secondly, I will never give a willing ear to any motion made at this bar, which 
shall not apparently tend to further and hasten the hearing of the cause. The 
very word motion, derived a movendo, to move, doth teach us that the hearing 
is, Finis, perfectio, &c. terminem ad quern, the end, perfection, and proper 
home, as it were, of the matter propounded. If a counsellor, therefore, will 
needs endeavour, as Velleius writes of the Gracchi, Optimo ingenio pessime 
uti, to make that bad use of a good wit, as to justle a cause out of the King's 
highway, which I hold in this court to be bill, answer, replication, rejoinder, 
examination and hearing, I will ever regard it as a wild-goose chase, and not a 
learned motion. The further a man runs out of his way, the further he is from 
home, the end of his journey, as Seneca speaks : so the more a man tattles 
besides these points, the further it is from the nature of a motion. Such a motion 
is a motion. Per Antiphrasin, ut mons a non movendo. It tends to nothing but 
certamen ingenii, a combat of wit, which is infinite and endless. For when it 
once comes to that pass, some will sooner a great deal lose the cause than the 
last word. Thirdly, I would have no man to conceive that I come to this place 



NOTES BBBB X X X X. 

to overthrow without special motives the orders and decrees of my predecessors* 
I would be loth to succeed any man, as Metellus did, Caius verres, cujus omnia 
erant ejusmodi, ut totam verris Praeturam retexere videretur; whose carriage, saith 
Tully, was a mere Penelope's web, and untwisting of all the acts of Verres's prae- 
torship. Upon new matter, I cannot avoid the reviewing a cause, but I will ever 
expect the forbearing of persons, so as the ashes of the dead may be hereafter 
spared, and the dust of the living no further raked. Fourthly, I will be as cautious 
as I can in referring of causes, which I hold of the same nature as a by-way 
motion. For one reference that spurs on a cause there are ten that bridle it in, 
and hold it from hearing. This is that which Bias calls the backward forward- 
ing of a cause ; for as the historian speaks, Quod procedere non protest recedit. 
Fifthly, I profess beforehand, that this court shall be no sanctuary for undirect 
and desperate sureties. It is a ground of the common law, that a man shall 
make no advantage of his own follies and laches. When the money is to be 
borrowed, the surety is the first in the intention ; and therefore, if it be not paid, 
let him a God's name be the first in execution. Lastly, I will follow the rules 
of this court in all circumstances, as near as I can, and considering that, as 
Pliny speaks, Stultissimum est ad imitandum, non optima quaeq. proponere : It 
were a great folly to make choice of any other than the very best for imitation, 
I will propound my old master for my pattern and precedent in all things. 
Beseeching Almighty God so to direct me, that while I hold this place, I may 
follow him by a true and constant imitation. And if I prove unfit and unable 
for the same, that I may not play the mountebank so in this place, as to abuse 
the king and the state, but follow the same most worthy lord in his cheerful and 
voluntary resignation, Sic mihi contingat vivere, sicq. mori." 

NOTE XX XX. 

When Coke said, " I know with whom I deal," and " For we have to deal 
to-day with a man of wit," more was conveyed than meets our ears at present. 

The monopoly of playing cards had been granted to Raleigh by Elizabeth ; 
and the casual mention of this monopoly in the House of Commons had, two 
years before, stung Raleigh sensibly. It was with him therefore, who had 
owned the cards that the Attorney had now to deal. 

Sir Simonds d'Ewes reports in his Journals, that on the 20th November, 1601, 
in a debate on a bill, " For the explanation of the common law in certain cases 
of Letters Patent," Dr. Bennet said, " He that will go about to debate her 
majesty's prerogative royal had need walk warily. In respect of a grievance out 
of the city for which I come, I think myself bound to speak that now which I 
had not intended to speak before ; I mean a monopoly of salt. It is an old 
proverb, Sal sapit omnia ; fire and water are not more necessary. But for other 
monopolies, cards (at which Sir Walter Raleigh blusht), dice, starch, and the 
like, they are (because monopolies), I must confess, very hurtful, though not all 
alike hurtful." The bystanders at Raleigh's trial seemed to have understood 
Coke's allusion in his use and repetition of the word " deal.'" A letter hitherto 
unpublished, and from an eye-witness, contains a curious passage which fur- 
nishes a conclusive comment upon these cruel words of the King's Attorney, 
and thus describes the game. 

" The managing of this arraignment was like the sett at Mawge. The King's 
Attorney did at the first in force the evidence with slender proofes, and reserved 
in the decke the ace of hearts. Sir W alter, on the other side, kept close the 
knave of the game, as he supposed, wherewith to take the ace. For after Sir 
Walter had much disabled the first evidence, and seemed in the opinion of 
divers not cleerely guiltie (though noe verie honest man), then did the Kinges 
Attorney produce a full and voluntarie accusation subscribed with the L. Cob- 
ham's owne hand, sheweinge that Sir Walter was the principall contryver, 
plotter, and deviser of all the treasons. Which Sir Walter seeing, seemed to 
wonder, and draweinge out of his bosome a paper, first used theis speeches in 



NOTE Y Y Y Y. 

effect : * Alas, poore, seely, weake, base, miserable man ;' and then intreated 
my L. Cecill to read it, whoe tooke it, and delivered it to the clarke, wherby it 
appeared that the L. Cobham had, upon all the oathes that maie binde a 
christian, an honest, or honorable man, cleered Sir Walter of all the treasons." 
" Winchester, hast, 19 of November, 1603. 

A postscript, " Sir Walter is attainted of treason," shews the letter to have 
been written under the impression of the moment and from the spot. 

With respect to Coke's abuse, it is curious, as matter of critical observation, to 
note how his own expressions, " English face" and " Spanish heart," suggest 
to himself through the association of face cards, and hearts, the offensive word 
" deal." As matter of moral observation, it is interesting to remark how 
quietly and effectively Raleigh gives his irritated accuser to understand that 
he is aware of the intended insult and retains his self-possession, by retorting 
upon cards a sarcasm derived from bowls: " It will go near to prove a measuring 
cast between you and me, Mr. Attorney." 

NOTE YYYY. 

When Coke indulged himself in these satirical lines he alluded to Sebastian 
Brant's " Stultifera navis," translated by Alexander Barclay, and then called, 
" The Ship of Fooles." This work opens with a most inviting satire, having for 
its title De Inutilibus Libris. " Here beginneth the Ship of Fooles, and first 
" Of Unprofitable Bookes ;" to the company of which Coke, in his ungrateful 
spleen, consigned the Novum Organum. In addition to the obvious sarcasm 
conveyed in the happy title to which he alludes, he doubtless indulged himself 
in the recollection of some lines which followed, and which he associated with 
Lord Bacon's new dignity. 

" Eche is not lettered that now is made a lorde, 
Nor eche a clerke that hath a benefice ; 
They are not all lawyers that pleas do recorde, 
All that are promoted are not fully wise." 

The spirit of his " Auctori Consilium" he evidently caught from the lines 
which conclude the satire in the original : 

" O vos doctores qui grandia nomina fertis 
Respicite antiquos patres, jurisque peritos : 
Non in candidulis pensebant dogmata libris," &c. 

May we be forgiven for the surmise that this reference to Brant's book was 
accompanied by some secret mental application of a coarse jest supplied by 
the next page? To the chapter " De Inutilibus Libris" succeeds " De Malis 
Consultoribus." " Of Evill Counsellors, Judges, and Men of Law," where the 
cut prefixed is an attempt to scald a live pig in a caldron. Now here, and in per- 
fect keeping with the refined spirit which dictated many of the Chief Justice's 
classical displays of rhetoric, was Bacon on the brink of the hot water which the 
Coke had prepared. The uncharitable suspicion gathers strength from the fact 
that the whole satire " Of Evill Counsellors" is directed by the translator to 
the Chancery Bar, in his L'Envoy, which opens thus, with some strength and 
much naivete. 

" Therefore ye yonge studentes of the Chauncery 
(I speake not to the aide, the cure of them is past :) 
Remember that justice long hath in bondage be, 
Reduce her no we unto libertie at the last, 
Endeavour you her bondes to louse or to brast." 

That the personages engaged in forcing the hog into the pot were adorned with 
caps and bells, was an incident most naturally overlooked by the self-compla- 
cency of the Chief Justice. 



NOTES Y Y Y Y Z ZZZ. 

From an indication which occurs in a collection of Poems in honour of Bacon, 
edited immediately after his death by Rawley, " Memorite Albani Sacrum," 
4to. 1626, good evidence may be adduced that the sarcasm contained in the 
lines, 

" Instaurare paras veterum documenta sophorum, 

Instaura leges, justitiamque prius," 

had been circulated, — and if so, most probably by the author himself — through 
the Inns of Court. Robert Ashley, of the Middle Temple, is one of the con- 
tributors, and thus indignantly refers to those very lines and the objection they 
convey : 

" Scripta docent ; veterum queis hie monumenta sophorum 
Censura castigat acri ; — exiguoque libello 
Stupendos ausus docet ' Instauratio Magna.'" 

This was not ill done with respect to the Latin gibe, but with regard to 
English as well as Latin, — the taunt upon his wisdom, or the sneer at his know- 
ledge of the principles of justice, — Bacon himself had already, and as it were 
by anticipation, done much better. Long ago had he given the very best reply 
to the ribbald allusion into which his device of a ship upon its adventurous 
voyage beyond the Pillars of Hercules, had tempted an ungenerous rival. Long 
before had he set an example which fixed the folly on him who would not or 
could not profit by it. In expressing his opinion of another's labours, he too 
had spoken of a ship ; but it was in a strain of higher mood, where justice and 
admiration united to drown the jarring notes of rivalry and self. In 1613 thus 
did Bacon, then Attorney General, write to his king : " Had it not been for 
Sir Edward Coke's reports (which though they may have errors, and some 
peremptory and extrajudicial resolutions more than are warranted, yet they 
contain infinite good decisions and rulings over of cases,) the law by this time 
had been almost like a ship without ballast." 

[For the two preceding notes I am indebted to my kind and intellectual 
friend, B. H. Bright.] 



NOTE ZZZZ. 

Nicholls, in his Progresses of Elizabeth, says, in each year an exact inventory 
was made on a roll signed by the Queen, and attested by the proper officers. 
Five of these rolls are preserved at full length in these volumes ; the earliest in 
1561-2, the latest in 1599-1600. The following from page 45 is a specimen : 

'* Anno Regni Reginae 42 Eliz. 1599, 1600. New yeares guyftes geven to 
the Queue's majestie at her mannor of Richmonde, the firste day of January, 
in the yeare abovesayde, by these persones whose names hereafter ensue, viz. 

" By Sir Thomas Egerton, Knight, Lord Keeper of the greate seale of Eng- 
lande, one amuylet of gold, garnished with sparkes of rubyes, pearle, and halfe 
pearle. 

" By the Lord Buckhurste, Lord High Treasurer of Englande,in golde, £10. 
delivered to Henry Sackford, esquyer, one of the groomes of her majestie's 
privy chamber. 

" By the Lord Marques Win', in golde, £20. 

M Earles. 

" By the Earl of Nottingham, Lord Admyrall, one karcanett, containinge 29 
pieces of golde, whereof nyne bigger pieces and tenne lesser, 18 pendantes like 
mullettes, likewise garnished with small rubyes and pearle, with a round jewell 
pendant in the myddest, garnished with one white topaz, and a pearle pendant, 
and nine small rubyes. 

vol.. xv. 21 



NOTES 7.7LZ2. XOT. 

" By the earle of Shrewesbury, parte of a doublett of white satten, embro- 
thered all over like snakes wounde together, of Venice sylver, with wroughte 
and puffes of lawne embrothered, with Venice sylver like wheate eares." 

The list then contains gifts by marquesses and countesses. By the bishops, 
by lords, baronesses, ladies, knights, sundry gentlewomen and gentlemen, 
including the gift of Mr. Francis Bacon, mentioned in the text. It concludes : 

" Summa totalis of all the- money given to her highness this year £754. 
6s. 8d." 

Amongst these are somewhat whimsically arranged the physicians, apothe- 
caries, the master cook, several tradesmen and artificers, ending with Charles 
Smith, Dustman, who gave " two bottes of Cambric," and received twenty 
ounces and a half of gilt plate. 

NOTE XOT. 

If man is under the influence of any passion more powerful than the love of 
truth, he swerves from the truth. 

All the rules of evidence in courts of justice as to the incompetency of wit- 
nesses seem to be founded on this law : and the confession of a criminal, if it is 
obtained by promises or threats, is not, by the law of England, permitted to be 
adduced as evidence against him ; and a confession under the influence of hope 
or fear is not admitted as evidence. 

" Man would contend that two and two did not make four, if his interests were 
affected by this position." — Hobbs. 

" The light of the understanding is not a dry and pure light, but drenched in 
the will and affections, and the intellect forms the sciences accordingly. What 
men desire should be true, they are most inclined to believe. The understanding, 
therefore, rejects things difficult, as being impatient of inquiry : things just and 
solid, because they limit hope ; and the deeper mysteries of nature, through 
superstition : it rejects the light of experience through pride and haughtiness, 
as disdaining the mind should be meanly and waverly employed : it excludes 
paradoxes for fear of the vulgar ; and thus the affections tinge and infect the 
understanding numberless ways and sometimes imperceptibly." — Bacon. 

" Agnus" was the only combination which the wolf, learning to spell, could 
make of the twenty-four letters of the alphabet. 

" Not much 
Unlike young men, whom Aristotle thought 
Unfit to hear moral philosophy. 
The reasons you allege do more conduce 
To the hot passion of distempered blood 
Than to make up a free determination 
'Twixt right and wrong, ' for pleasure and revenge 
Have ears more deaf than adders to the voice 
Of any true decision.' " — Troilus and Cressida. 

In the memoirs of Baron Grimm, he says, " Madame Geoffrin avait fait a 
M. de Rhuliere des offres assez considerables pour l'engager a, jeter au feu son 
Manuscrit sur la Russie. II lui prouva ties eloquemment que ce serait de sa 
part Taction la plus indigne et la plus lache. A tout ce grand 6talage d'hon- 
neur, de vertu, de sensibilite qu'elle avait paru ecouter avec beaucoup de 
patience, elle ne lui repoudit que ces deux mots: " En voulez-vous davan- 
tage?"' 

A certain English ambassador, who had for a time resided at the court of 
Rome, was on his return introduced at the levee of Queen Caroline. This lady 
asked him why in his absence he did not try to make a convert of the Pope to 
the Protestant religion'? He answered her, "Madam, the reason was that I 
had nothing better to offer his Holiness than what he already has in his 
possession." 



NOTE XOV. 



The various obstacles are 



{ 



1. Want of time, from J Worldly oc . c »f tion « 
' / Shortness of life. 



2. Want of means. 
That they are all and each overrated may, without difficulty, be seen. 

Worldly occupation. 

Although it is, in general, true that the wisdom of a learned man cometh by 
opportunity of leisure, and he that hath little business shall become wise, yet 
let it not be forgotten what has ever been done in contemplation by lovers of 
truth engaged in active life : by those who are so fortunate as to know the 
delights -of intellectual pleasure* 

Brutus, when a soldier under Eompey in the civil wars, employed all his 
leisure in study ; and the very day before the battle of Pharsalia, though it was 
in the middle of summer, and the camp under many privations, spent all his 
time till the evening in writing an epitome of Polybius. 

Julius Caesar wrote his Commentaries and a work De Analogia, occasioned 
-a reformed computation of the year, and collected a book of Apophthegms. 

Who can forget the labouTS of Cicerol 

Alfred, notwithstanding the multiplicity and urgency of his affairs, employed 
iiimself in the pursuits ~e( knowledge: he often laboured under great bodily 
infirmities : he fought in person fifty-six battles by sea and land ; was able, 
during a life of no extraordinary length, to acquire more knowledge, and even 
to compose more books, than most studious men, though blest with the greatest 
leisure and application, have in more fortunate ages made the object of their 
uninterrupted industry. 

Elizabeth, unto the very last year of her life, accustomed herself to appoint 
set hours for reading ; scarce any young student in an university more daily or 
more duly. 

Can the labours of Milton or of Burke be forgotten 1 

Shortness of life. 
" Vita brevis : ars longa : 
Sed fugit interea : fugit irreparabile tempus." 

Notwithstanding the shortness of life, which is supplied by the conjunction 
of labours, much may be done by any individual who steadily pursues his 
object. Let him who despairs think of the labours of the schoolmen : of our 
divines, of Barrow, of Taylor : of eminent artists, of Raphael, of Michael 
Angelo : of poets, of Milton, of Shakespeare : of philosophers, of Newton, of 
Bacon. 

The obstacle from the shortness of life may be counteracted by the con- 
sciousness that ' no labour is lost," and that a discovered truth will flourish in 
future ages. " We hold it sufficient,'' says Bacon, " to carry ourselves soberly 
and usefully in moderate things ; and in the mean time to sow the seeds of pure 
truth for posterity, and not be wanting in our assistance to the first beginnings 
of great things." 

In Bacon's Dedication of the Novum Organum to James, he says, " I may, 
perhaps, when I am dead, hold out a light to posterity by this new torch set up 
in the obscurity of philosophy." 

We ought rather to be grateful than to repine at being able to conceive more 
than we are able to execute. In works of benevolence our exertions are limited : 
we can reach only to our arm's length, and our voice can be heard only till the 
next air is still : are we to murmur because our good wishes and prayers 
extend to all mankind 1 

Wasting time. 

The knowledge of the art of preventing the waste of time is a science of great 
importance, and may be thus exhibited : 



NOTE XOV. 

f 1 . In general. 

-j f 1 . Excess in sleep. 

1^2. In particular. -| 2. Misapplication of times of vacation. 

1^3. Useless inquiry. 

Wasting time, in general. 
Alfred usually divided his time into three equal portions : one was employed 
jn sleep and the refection of his body by diet and exercise ; another in the dis- 
patch of business ; a third in study and devotion : and that he might more 
exactly measure the hours, he made use of burning tapers of equal length, 
which he fixed in lanthorns, an expedient suited to that rude age when the 
geometry of dialling, and the mechanism of clocks and watches was entirely 
unknown. 

Sleep. 

Of wasting time by excessive sleep, Milton, speaking of his own morning 
occupations, says, " My morning haunts are, where they should be, at home ; 
not sleeping, or concocting the surfeits of an irregular feast, but up, and 
stirring ; in winter, often ere the sound of any bell awake men to labour, or to 
devotion ; in summer, as oft with the bird that first rises, or not much tardier, 
to read good authors, or cause them to be read, till the attention be weary, or 
memory have its full freight." 

Wasting time, by misapplication of times of vacation. 

Cicero says, " Quare quis tandem me reprehendat : si quantum caeteris ad 
festo.s dies ludorum celebrandos, quantum ad alias voluptates et ad ipsam 
requiem animi et corporis conceditur temporis, quantum alii tempestivis con- 
viviis, tantum mihi egomet ad haec studia recolenda sumpsero." 

" But," says Bacon, " if any man notwithstanding resolvedly maintaineth, 
that learning takes up too much time which might otherwise be better employed, 
I answer, that no man can be so straitened and oppressed with business and an 
active course of life, but may have many vacant times of leisure, whilst he 
expects the returns and tides of business, except he be either of a very dull 
temper or of no dispatch, or ambitious (little to his credit and reputation) to 
meddle and engage himself in employment of all natures and matters above his 
reach. It remaineth therefore to be inquired in what matter, and how those 
spaces and times of leisure should be filled up and spent ; whether in pleasures 
or study, sensuality, or contemplation, as was well answered by Demosthenes 
to iEschines, a man given to pleasure, who, when he told him by way of 
reproach that his orations did smell of the lamp, ' Indeed,' said Demosthenes, 
' there is great difference between the things that you and I do by lamplight;' 
wherefore let no man fear lest learning should expulse business ; nay, rather it 
will keep and defend the possessions of the mind against idleness and pleasure, 
which otherwise, at unawares, may enter, to the prejudice both of business and 
learning." 

Mr. Charles Butler, in his Reminiscences, says, " Very early rising, a sys- 
tematic division of my time, abstinence from all company, and from all diver- 
sions not likely to amuse me highly, and, above all, never permitting a bit or 
scrap of time to be unemployed, have supplied me with an abundance of 
literary hours." 

Instances of this misapplication of times of vacation may be observed in the 
conduct of members of different professions. 

Evelyn, in his Memoirs, says, 5th December, 1678 : " I was this day invited 
to a wedding of one Mrs. Castle, to whom I had some obligation, and it was to 
her fifth husband, a lieutenant colonel of the city. She was the daughter of 
one Burton, a broom-man, by his wife who sold kitchen-stuff, whom God so 
blessed, that the father became very rich and was a very honest man: he was 
Sheriff of Surrey when I sat on the bench with him. Another of his daughters 
was married to Sir John Bowles, and this daughter was a jolly, friendly woman. 
Xhere was at the wedding the Lord Mayor, the Sheriff, several Aldermen, and 



NOTE XOV. 

persons of quality : above all, Sir George Jeffries, newly made Lord Chief 
Justice of England, with Mr. Justice Withings, danced with the bride, and 
were exceeding merry. These great men spent the rest of the afternoon, till 
eleven at night, in d; inking healths, taking tobacco, and talking much beneath 
the gravity of judges, that had but a day or two before condemed Mr. Algernon 
Sidney." 

Mr. C. Butler, in his Essay on the Life of Chancellor de PHopital, says, 
" When a magistrate, after the sittings of the court, returned to his family/ he 
had little temptation to stir again from home. His library was necessarily his 
sole resource ; his books, his only company. Speaking generally, he had 
studied hard at college, and had acquired there a taste for literature, which 
never forsook him. To this austere and retired life, we owe the Chancellor de 
l'Hopital, the President de Thou, Pasquier, Loisel, the Pithous, and many 
other ornaments of the magistracy. These days are passed." 

Of loss of time by useless inquiry. 

As the inclination to affection is imprinted deeply in our nature, insomuch 
that, if it issue not towards our fellow creatures, it will fix upon other creatures ; 
so the love of truth, if it be not rightly directed, will waste itself in idle inquiry. 
Inquiry cannot, stiictly speaking, ever be said to be wholly useless: for it is, 
indeed, some consolation to reflect that, however we may err and stray in the 
pursuit of knowledge, our labours are seldom, if ever, wholly lost. Some 
wheat will spring up amidst the tares. The waters of science cannot be 
troubled without exerting their virtue. 

Bacon, in his Novum Organum, when speaking of instances of power, says, 
" Neither are superstitions, and those commonly called magical matters, to be 
quite excluded : for, although things of this kind lie strangely buried, and deep 
involved in falsehood and fable ; yet some regard should be had to discover 
whether no natural operation is concealed in the heap ; for example : in fasci- 
nation — 1. The power of imagination. 2. The sympathy or consent of distant 
things. 3. The communication of impressions, from spirit to spirit, as well as 
from body to body/' &c. 

The pursuit of alchemy is at an end. Yet surely to alchemy this right is 
due, that it may truly be compared to the husbandman, whereof /Esop makes 
the fable, that, when he died, told his sons he had left unto them a great mass 
of gold buried under ground in his vineyard, but did not remember the particular 
place where it was hidden ; who, when they had with spades turned up all the 
vineyard, gold indeed they found none, but by reason of their stirring and 
digging the mould about the roots of their vines, they had a great vintage the 
year following : so the painful search and stir of alchemists to make gold hath 
brought to light a great number of good and fruitful experiments, as well for 
the disclosing of nature, as the use of man's life. 

f"l. Avoiding idle curiosity. 
The modes of preventing useless J 2. Knowledge of existing inventions. 

inquiry are by | 3. Contracting the inquiry within narrow 

(__ limits. 

Idle curiosity. 

We spend our days in unprofitable questions and disputations, intricate 
subtleties, de lana caprinu, about moonshine in the water. 

Truths, that the learn'd pursue with eager thought, 
Are not important always as dear bought, 
Proving at last, though told in pompous strains, 
A childish waste of philosophic pains ; 
But truths, on which depends our main concern, 
That 'tis our shame and misery not to learn, 
Shine by the side of every path we tread, 
With such a lustre, he that runs may read. 



NOTE XOV. 

Bacon, in his Novum Organum, says, " Among prerogative instances, we 
assign the twenty-fifth place to intimating instances : that is, such as hint or 
point out the advantages or conveniences of mankind ; for bare power and 
knowledge only enlarge, but do not enrich human nature, and therefore such 
things as principally appertain to the uses of life, are to be selected, or culled 
out from the general mass of things." Again, " As a further ground of expec- 
tation men may please to consider the infinite expense of genius, time, and 
treasure that has been bestowed upon things and studies of very little use and 
value ; whilst, if but a part thereof were employed upon sound and serviceable 
matters, every difficulty mi^ht be conquered." 

The angel in the Paradise Lost says, 

*' But whether thus these things or whether not, 
Whether the sun predominant in heaven 
Rise on the eaith, or earth rise on the sun, 
He from the east his flaming road begin, 
Or she from west her silent course pursue 
With inoffensive pace, that spinning sleeps 
On her soft axle, while she paces even 
And bears thee soft with the smooth air along, 
Solicit not thy thoughts with matters hid, 
Leave them to God above. 

but to know 

That which before us lies in daily life 

Is the prime wisdom, what is more is fume, 

Or emptiness, or fond impertinence. 

Joy thou 

In what he gives to thee, this paradise 
And thy fair Eve ; heaven is for thee too high 
To know what passes there ; be lowly wise : 
Think only what concerns thee and thy being." 

Les hommes ne sont pas nes pour employer leur temps a mesurer des lignes, 
<a examiner les rapports des angles, a considerer les divers mouvemens de la 
-matiere : leur esprit est trop grand, leur vie trop courte, leur temps trop 
precieux pour l'occuper a de si petits objets ; mais ils sont obliges d'etre 
justes, equitables, judieieux dans tous leurs discours, dans toutes leur actions, 
et dans toutes les affaires qu'ils manient, et c'est a quoi ils doivent particu- 
tlierement s'exercer et se former. 

" Quid fas optare, quid asper 

Utile nummus habet, patriae charisque propinquis 
Quantum elargiri deceat, quern te Deus esse 
Jussit, et humana qua parte locatus es in re. 
Quid sumus, aut quidnam victuri gignimus." 

'Curiosity in things of little use is either in words or in matter ; the first 
-distemper of learning is when men study words, not matter ; a vanity which 
more or less will ever exist. 

Pygmalion frenzy is a good emblem of this vanity, for what are words but 
the images of matter 1 and except they be animated with the spirit of reason, to 
fstil in love with them, is all one as to fall in love with a picture. 

Demetrius the grammarian finding in the temple of Delphos a knot of 
philosophers chatting together, said to them, ' Either I am much deceived, or 
by your cheeiful and pleasant countenance, you are engaged in no very deep 
discourse.' To which one of them, Heraclean the magician, replied, ' 'Tis 
for such as are puzzled about inquiring whether the future tense of the verb 
fiaXXio be spelt widi a double X, or that hunt after the derivation of the com- 
paratives x il 9 l0V i fleXriov, and the superlatives x £ 'P l<ro,/ » P'iXti^ov, to knit 
their brows whilst discouring of their science.' 



NOTES XOU XOY. 

Ignorance of existing inventions. 

The celebrated John Hunter, who was almost self-educated, is said to have 
devoted much of his valuable lime to the discovery of some truths that had been 
known for years. 

Bacon, in his Instances of Power, says, " In the tenth place come instances 
of power ; or, as we sometimes call them, trophies or ensigns of power, inven- 
tions, or the works of men's hands ; that is, the most noble and perfect works, 
and as it were the masterpiece in every art. For since the design is to bend 
nature to things, and bring her to serve the turn of man, (a) it is absolutely 
proper that the works already in men's possession should be enumerated and 
set down, (as so many provinces already subdued and cultivated,) especially 
such works as are best understood, and brought nearest to perfection ; because 
these afford a short and easy passage to further discoveries. 

Contracting inquiries within narrow limits. 
This subject is considered in the Novum Organum. 

NOTE XOU. 

When a great outrage is committed by a lunatic, as Hadfield's attempting to 
shoot the King, or Bellingham's shooting Mr. Percival, it is a common vulgar 
feeling that the offender should be executed : and Bellingham was executed. — 
Q. 1. Does not this error originate in the supposition that insane minds can be 
influenced by a calculation of the consequences of its actions'? Q. 2. Do not 
punishments increase the offence, by awakening the morbid feeling'? Q. 3. 
Does not punishment originate in the alarm felt by the community at the 
probable repetition of the offence. 

NOTE XOY. 

" My very good Lord, — I thank your lordship for your last loving 
letter. I now write to give the King an account of a patent I have stayed 
at the seal. It is of licence to give in mortmain eight hundred pounds 
land, though it be in tenure in chief to Allen, that was the player, for an 
hospital. I like well that Allen playeth the last act of his life so well ; but 
if his majesty give way thus to amortize his tenures, his courts of wards 
will decay, which I had well hoped should improve. But that which 
moved me chiefly is, that his majesty now lately did absolutely deny Sir 
Henry Savile for two hundred pounds, and Sir Edwin Sandys for one 
hundred pounds, to the perpetuating of two lectures, the one in Oxford, 
the other in Cambridge, foundations of singular honour to his majesty (the 
best learned of kings), and of which there is great want; whereas hospitals 
abound, and beggars abound never a whit the less. If his majesty do like 
to pass the book at all ; yet if he would be pleased to abridge the eight 
hundred pounds to five hundred pounds, and then give way to the other 
two books for the university, it were a princely work. And I would make 
an humble suit to the King, and desire your lordship to join in it, that it 
might be so. God ever preserve and prosper you. Your Lordship's 
most obliged friend and faithful servant." 

In Heme's History of the Charter House, p. 107, after having stated 

(a) Let a clear and strong conception be had of the end in view ; which is 
no less than to acquire such a command and mastery over nature, as that men 
may use her like a ready instrument, or agent, in effecting the greatest works ; 
such as lengthening life, ruling the weather, and the like, which to vulgar 
philosophers appear impossibilities. 



NOTE XOY. 

Bacon's letter to the King respecting Sutton's Hospital (ante, cliv), says, 
" Those who ever understood the temper of this learned man may easily 
perceive that at this time there were baits enough laid for his partiality, 
that such a mind as his could not but be biassed, nay, now he was to con- 
test for opposition's sake : this made him busy and importunate, eager at 
the bar, and earnest in his addresses to the King. The motives that 
encouraged him to espouse the plaintiff's quarrel, in short were these : 
1. The comfortable expectation of a great share of the revenues. 2. Be- 
cause he was not named by Sutton, as one of the trustees for the founda- 
tion; which very reflection Mr. Laws, the executor, used to him much 
about the trial. 3. He and Sir Edward Coke could never agree, and 
therefore no wonder if they differed in this affair : an instance whereof I 
find in a letter of his of expostulation to Sir Edward, wherein he says, 
He took a liberty to disgrace his law, experience, and discretion, &c. 
I shall not undertake to answer the particular arguments in the letter, but 
only briefly take thus much notice of it. First, the simile of salt and 
sacrifice amounts to no more than this : that we can do nothing perfectly, 
but yet we must do as well as we can ; and in acts of mercy every man is 
the proper judge of his own discretion. Secondly, he urges the honourable 
trustees cannot live for ever; but yet, at their decease, their equals are 
chosen in their room. What else is urged, is rather a large and studied 
essay of the end of charity, than a thing proper to this affair." 

In Stephens's collection of letters, p. 234, which contains this letter to 
Buckingham, there is the following note upon these observations of Heme : 
" It were to be wished this observation did not hold true in these times ; 
for though the foundations of hospitals are to be commended, which Sir 
Francis Bacon hath done both in this letter and other his writings, yet it 
shews that some more adequate remedy for supporting the poor, than what 
arises from these charities, or even from the laws enacted for their relief, 
was then, and yet is to be desired. And as the defect thereof is no small 
reproach to the government of a country, happy in its natural product, and 
enriched by commerce; so it would be an act of the greatest humanity, 
that the poor might be provided for, and beggary and idleness, the succes- 
sive nursery of rogues, as far as possible extirpated. And since his majesty 
has recommended it to the parliament from his throne, with a tenderness 
becoming the father of his country, it is to be hoped that great assembly 
will be able in his reign to effect so good a work. Upon this occasion I 
cannot but take notice of a story which has been spread abroad to the 
defamation of Sir Francis Bacon (but upon no good ground, as far as 1. 
can judge), as if in the accomplishment of the foundation of the Chartreux 
Hospital, begun by Mr. Sutton, and carried on by his executors, Sir 
Francis who was then the King's Solicitor, had, for some ill designs of 
gain to himself or others, endeavoured to have defeated the same. The 
fact whereof was: that the heir at law supposing, that notwithstanding 
what Mr. Sutton had done in procuring acts of parliament, and patents 
from the King, in order to establish this noble charity, the greatest part of 
his estate was descended to him ; it was argued on his behalf, by the 
Solicitor General, and by Mr. Henry Yelverton, and Mr. Walter, men of 
great reputation in those times. And whatever ill intentions some of the 
court might have, my request to the reader is, that before he pass any 
censure upon Sir Francis Bacon relating hereunto, he would please to 
peruse his advice given to the King touching Mr. Sutton's estate, and 
published in the Resuscitatio, p. 265/' 



1S0TE GGG. 

NOTE GGGr. 

Journal of Proceedings against Lord Bacon. 
[From a tract, entitled, A Collection of the Proceedings, &c] 

15th March, 1620. — Sir Robert Philips reports from the committee appointed 
to inquire into abuses in the courts of justice, viz. — I am commanded from the 
said committee to render an account of some abuses in the courts of justice, 
which have been presented unto us. In that which I shall deliver are three 
parts: 1. The person against whom it is alleged. 2. The matter alleged. 3. 
The opinion of the committee. 

1 . The person against whom it is alleged is no less than the Lord Chancellor ; 
a man so endued with all parts both of nature and art, as that I will say no 
more of him, being not able to say enough. 2. The matter alleged is corrup- 
tion. 3. The persons by whom this is presented to us are two, Awbrey and 
Egerton. 

Awbrey's petition saith, that he having a cause depending before the Lord 
Chancellor, and being tired by delays, was advised by some, that are near my 
lord, to quicken the way by more than ordinary means, viz. by presenting my 
lord with 100/. The poor gentleman, not able by any means to come to his 
wished-for port, struck sail at this, and made a shift to get 100/. from the 
usurer ; and having got it, went with Sir George Hastings and Mr. Jenkins of 
Gray's Inn ; and being come to my lord's house, they took the money of him, 
and carried it in to my Lord Chancellor, and came out to him again, saying, 
My lord was thankful, and assured him of good success in his business. Sir 
George Hastings acknowledges the giving of advice, and carrying in of money 
to my lord, and saith, he presented it to my lord as from himself, and not from 
Awbrey. This is also confirmed by divers letters ; but it wrought not the effect 
which the gentleman expected ; for notwithstanding this, he was still delayed. 

Egerton sheweth, that he desiring to procure my lord's favour, was persuaded 
by Sir George Hastings and Sir Richard Young to present my lord with a sum 
of money. Before this advice, he had given a present of 52L and odd shillings 
in plate, as a testimony of his love ; but yet rests doubtful whether before his 
calling to seal, or since. But now, by mortgaging his estate, he got up 400/. 
and sends for Sir George Hastings and Sir Richard Young, desires their assist- 
ance in presenting this money, and told them how much it was. They took it 
and carried it in, and presented it to the Lord Chancellor, as a gratuity from 
the gentleman, for that my lord (when he was Attorney) stood by him. My 
lord (as they say) started at it first, saying, It was too much, he would not take 
it ; but at length was persuaded, because it was for favours past, and took it ; 
and the gentleman returned him thanks, saying, That their lord said that he did 
not only enrich him, but laid a tie on him to assist him in all just and lawful 
business. Sir George Hastings and Sir Richard Young acknowledged the 
receiving and delivery of the purse, but said they knew not what was in it. 

Then a question was proposed, whether there were any suit depending during 
those offers, either in the Chancery or Star Chamber ; but there was no certain 
evidence of it. Thus you see corruption laid to the charge of a judge too, a 
great judge, nay, to the great keeper of the king's conscience. 

Another point came in by the by, shewing that some indirect means are some- 
times open (I fear too often) to the courts of justice. It concerns no less man 
than a divine, that is now a bishop, but then called Doctor Field. Mr. Eger- 
ton and he being acquainted, and Mr. Egerton's mind being troubled with the 
ill success of his business, vented it to this divine, who contrary to his profes- 
sion, took upon him to broke for him in such a manner, as was never prece- 
dented by any. He made Egerton to acknowledge a recognizance of 10,000/. 
with a defeasance, that if my Lord Chancellor did decree it for him, 6000/. was 
to be distributed amongst those honourable persons that did solicit it for him ; 

vol. xv. 22 



NOTE GG G. 

but if it did not go as they desired, he promised in verbo sacerdotis, that he 
would deliver the bonds again. This appeared by letters from the now reverend 
bishop, but then practical doctor. Mr. Johnson (a moral honest man) per- 
ceiving that Mr. Egerton finding no relief, did intend to prefer a petition against 
my Lord Chancellor, by one Heal's means, took occasion to talk with Mr. 
Egerton, asking him, why he would prefer such a scandalous petition against 
my lord 1 He would have him take the money out of the petition, and then his 
cause by the mediation and conference of some other judge with my lord, might 
be brought to a good end ; and for money, if he had lent any, he might be 
satisfied again. There was, upon a petition to the King by Sir Rowland 
Egerton, a reference of this matter to my Lord Chancellor, and Mr. Edward 
Egerton entered into 10,000 marks bond. 

He had treated with one Doctor Sharp, that if he would give 1100/. he 
should have his desire : we sent for Sharp, but he denied that he ever contracted 
with him. 

The desire of the committee was, to reform that which was amiss ; and they 
thought fit to give as much expedition as may be, because so great a man's 
honour is soiled with it, and therefore that further inquisition be made this 
afternoon, and when it is found, to be sent to the Lords. 

Thus I have faithfully related what hath passed, and with as much duty and 
respect as I might to my Lord Chancellor, I desire it to be carried out of the 
house with a favourable construction. 

Ordered, that this matter be further considered by the committee this after- 



[The previous statement is from the Tract, the following from the Journals :] 

15th March. — Sir Robert Phillippes reporteth from the committee for Courts 
of Justice, three parts : Person, against whom : the matter : and opinion of 
the committee : with desire of further direction. 

The person, the Lord Chancellor : a man excellently endued with all parts, 
of nature and art. Will not speak much, because cannot speak enough. 

The matter, corruption : the parties accusing, Awbrey and Egerton. 

Upon question, resolved, that the complaints of Awbrey and Egerton against 
the Lord Chancellor and the Bishop, for corruption, for the 100/, and 400/. and 
the recognizance, shall be presented to the Lords from this house, without 
prejudice or opinion. 

This to be presented to the Lords upon Monday. 

The heads hereof to be set down in writing, for the better information of this 
house. 

The same to be presented by Sir Ro. Phillippes. 

The heads to be set down by Sir Edw. Coke, Sir Ro. Phillippes, Mr. Noye, 
Sir D. Digges. 

Sir Tho. Howard. That this message must be, first, for a conference; and 
then to deliver this complaint at that conference. Agreed. 

Awbrey. 

Awbrey complaineth, that, wearied in his cause in chancery, he was advised 
by his counsel, to expedite his business, to present the Lord Chancellor with 
100/. He got at use 100/. goeth with Sir George Hastings and Mr. Jenkyns to 
Yorke House : there they two went, and returned to him, with thanks from my 
lord, and hopes of better success in his cause than formerly. 

That Sir George confessed, he consented to the advice ; and that he gave my 
lord the money, but, as from himself, not from the party. 

That this confirmed by the copies of Awbrey's letters to my lord ; wherein 
this sum mentioned. That, this nohvithstanding, his cause succeeded ill, 
being still locked up there. 

Egerton. 

The next, Edward Egerton. That, having many suits, he first presented my 



NOTE GGG. 

lord with a bason and ewer, of 52/. but doubtful, whether this before he was 
Lord Keeper, or presently after. 

That persuaded by Sir George Hastinges, and Sir Richard Yong, to gratify 
my lord. That he sold tythes ; raised 400/. carried it to Whytehall, to my 
Lord Chancellor's lodging; called for Sir George and Sir Richard Yong, and 
by them sent in this gold in a purse ; who carried it in to my lord ; who started 
at it. saying, it was too much. That thanks returned to him from my lord. 
And Edward Egerton saith, he had a further message ; that my lord said, he 
not only enriched him, but bound him to do him all lawful favours. 

This denied by Sir George and Sir Richard Yong ; but the delivery of the 
money confessed by them. 

That it was ordered by the committee, Edward Egerton should have time, to 
bring in all the petitions, references, bills, answers, injunctions, orders, and 
writings, concerning this business. 

That a circumstance appeared, that some indirect way open in these cases. 
That Egerton, acquainted with a divine, now a bishop, broke to him his suits : 
he undertook to broke for him ; took from him a recognizance of 10,000/. with 
a kind of defeazance, that, if his land were decreed him, he should pay 6000/. 
to those honourable persons, by whom he should receive favour. That this was 
confirmed by Bishop Feild's letters. That this letter had some honesty in it ; 
for, if the business succeeded not, in verbo sacerdotis he should have his recog- 
nizance again. 

A circumstance, concerning Mr. Johnson, a member of this house, a moral 
honest man : That, as Egerton saith, Johnson persuaded him to take out of 
his petition the matter of money, and then his lordship would give way to it ; 
and, if he would go in the afternoon to my lord, with Sir George and Sir 
Richard Yong, my lord was like to let him have the money he had lent him : 
but this Johnson denied. 

Sir Richard Yong: grieved, to hear, or speak, of this. That he summoned 
to answer here in a great senate ; therefore will neither deny, nor blanch, truth. 
That Edward Egerton and he long acquainted : cousins. Beholding to the 
Lord Chancellor, who had been formerly of his counsel. That Sir George and 
he dining with my lord at Whytehall, Edward Egerton brought them a bag of 
gold : that they presented it to my lord, as a thankful remembrance from a 
client, to buy him a suit of hangings for his house, which then preparing. 

Mr. Noye : two complainers of wrongs .done by them ; Awbrew, and Eger- 
ton. That they accuse the Lord Chancellor of a great crime. We must needs 
now, either clear, or condemn him. 

That strange, there should be witnesses in this case : yet here some. Liketh 
not, Sir George or Sir Richard should have made any apology. The accusa- 
tion against one, that hath taken an oath, as a counsellor to the king, and chan- 
cellor : if the offence true, wrongeth the king, and the land in general. 

It seems to be next to impossible that communication of these proceedings 
was not immediately made to the Lord Chancellor, and yet it is certain that he 
sat in the House of Lords on the 17th March, as appears from the following 
entry on the journals : 

Die Sabbati, videlicet, 17° die Martii, Domini tarn Spirituales quam Tempo- 
rales, quorum nomina subscribuntur, prsesentes fuerunt : 

p. Carolus Princeps Walliae, &c. 
Archiepus. Cant. p. Yicecomes St. Alban, 

p. Archiepus. Eborum. Magn. Cane. Anglian. 

Epus. London. p. Yicecomes Maundevil, 

p. Epus. Dunelm. Mag. Thes. Angliae. 

&c. &c. 

This was the last time he sat as Chancellor in the House of Lords. 



NOTE GGG. 

[Sabbati, 17th March, 1620.— 1st. From the Tract.] 

Sir Robert Phillips made report from the Committee of the abuses in the 
Courts of Justice. 

We met on Thursday in the afternoon : the principal thing wherein I desired 
to be satisfied was, whether at the time of giving those gifts to the Lord Chan- 
cellor, there was any suit depending before him. In Awbrey's case it appeared 
plainly there was something accidentally fell out in this examination, and that 
is a declaration of Sir George Hastings, who hath been struggling with himself 
betwixt gratitude and honesty, but public and private goods meeting, he pre.- 
ferred the public, he pitying Awbrey's case, did give in a box of 100/. to the 
Lord Chancellor in those terms or the like, that it was to help Awbrey in his 
cause, notwithstanding not long after a very prejudicial and murthering order 
was made against Awbrey in his cause ; whereupon Sir George Hastings moved 
my Lord Chancellor to rectify this order ; my lord promised to do it, but did it 
not. The order was put into the hands of one Churchill, (one of the registers 
of the Chancery) by a servant of the Lord Chancellor's. 

There are letters of Awbrey to the Lord Chancellor touching this business. 

Now for Mr. Egerton's case : as the matter was of more weight, so the sura 
was of larger extent, for there was 400/. given then, and a suit then depending 
in the Star Chamber, about which time Sir Rowland Egerton did prefer a 
petition to the King for a reference unto the Lord Chancellor ; whereupon my 
lord caused him to enter into 10,000 marks bond to stand to his award. An 
award was made, which was refused by Edward Egerton ; thereupon a suit by 
the Lord Chancellor's direction was commenced against him, and the bond of 
10,000 marks assigned over to Sir Rowland Egerton. About this time Edward 
Egerton became acquainted with Doctor Field, relating his cause unto him, 
who pitying him, sent him two worthy gentlemen, Mr. Damport and Sir John 
Butler (who is now dead ;) he makes known his case to them, and desires them 
to be a means to put off his cause from hearing, because his witnesses were not 
here. Whereupon Damport rode to the Marquis of Buckingham to have had 
his letter to the Lord Chancellor to stop it; but the marquis said he would not 
write, because the matter was already decreed, and he would not receive it. 
Mr. Egerton was drawn into a bond of 10,000/. for 6,000/. and Mr. Damport 
being asked what he and Doctor Field should have had of this money, he said 
he did not remember what certain sum, but he said it was more than any cause 
could deserve in any court of justice. 

In Awbrey's case this is to be added, that Sir George Hastings being at 
Hackney, where he dwelt, was sent for by the Lord Chancellor, and came unto 
him, and found him in bed, who bid him come near him, and willed the rest to 
depart the room, and then said to him, Sir George, I am sure you love me, and 
I know that you are not willing that any thing done by you shall reflect any 
dishonour upon me. I hear that one Awbrey pretends to petition against me ; 
he is a man that you have some interest in, you may take him off if you please. 
Sir George Hastings afterwards met with Awbrey, and asked whether he 
intended any such thing, and desired to see it to show the Lord Chancellor, 
which Sir George accordingly did, and desired my lord to do the poor man 
justice. My lord promised to do it, and bad him bring his counsel ; they did 
so, but could have no remedy; so the petition went on. Sir George Hastings 
sometimes since had conference with my Lord Chancellor; he told him, he 
must lay it upon his lordship. If you do, George, said he, I must deny it upon 
my honour. 

Thus you see the relation of what hath passed. Now for our proceedings 
in it. 

It is a cause of great weight, it concerns every man here ; for if the fountains 
be muddy, what will the streams be 1 If the great dispenser of the king's conr 
science be corrupt, who can have any courage to plead before him 1 I will 
present one thing to you, and then make a request. 

That which I move is, that we present this business singly to the Lords, and 
deliver it without exasperation. One precedent is for it in the like case, for a 



NOTE GGG. 

■chancellor in a cause of corruption. Secondly, because the party accused is a 
peer of the kingdom, sitting in the higher house, whom we cannot meddle with. 
Thirdly, because we have no power to give an oath. That which I request is, 
that those people which have been fettered with much calamity by these courses 
may by petition to his majesty, or otherwise, have their causes revived and 
revised. 

Sir Edward Sackvil. This noble lord stands but yet suspected ; and I hold 
not those gentlemen that have testified against him competent witnesses. 1. 
Because they speak to discharge themselves. 2. Because, if he be guilty, they 
were those who tempted him. But yet, if notwithstanding you resolve to send 
it up to the Lords, let it be presented without any prejudicial opinion, to be 
weighed in the balance of their lordships' judgments. And if they think fit to 
examine these witnesses, let them. 

Sir George Hastings. This adds to my grief; but this is my resolution, I 
had rather perish with a just sentence here than escape with a guilty conscience. 

Some moved, that Sir George Hastings and Sir Richard Young should be 
separated till the matter were ended, but nothing ordered therein. 

Mr. Nevil. After some reluctation within me, I am resolved to speak what 
my conscience moves me unto ; I speak for the good of my country, the honour 
of my king, and advancement of justice. Justice is the fountain, the king the 
head thereof, clear as the waters of Siloah, pure as the river of Damascus ; but 
there is a derivative justice brought unto us by channels ; those are often 
muddy, and more bitter than the waters of Marah ; such waters flow abundantly 
in Chancery. I will not touch upon the person of him that sits in court, for he 
is the dispenser of the king's conscience ; but because some motions are made 
against the testimony of those gentlemen, I will say this, I think them fit to 
sit here, because they are neither delinquents nor accused. My lord means to 
deny it upon his honour ; but I would not have that serve his turn, for he bim^- 
self hath made the nobility swear in Chancery : therefore I would have their 
lordships informed what privileges they have lost. Next I would have them 
note the luxuriant authority of that court, and how it is an inextricable laby- 
riath, wherein resideth such a minotaur, as gormandizeth the liberty of all 
subjects whatsoever. 

Mr. Recorder Finch. If we shall make but a presentation of this, we do in 
a sort accuse him, nay, judge him, if the gentlemen be admitted to give testi- 
mony ; before it shall condemn another, it must agree with itself. 

First, I heard him say, he gave it as a present from himself, yet afterwards 
he saith, he told my Lord Chancellor he had it from Awbrey. Again, Awbrey 
speaks not of any delivery of money himself to my Lord Chancellor. Then 
again it is urged, that a discontented suitor wrote letters to my lord, the letters 
are rejected, not hearkened unto : what doth this but free him 1 

In the other case ; if Egerton, out of a desire to congratulate him at his 
coming to the seal for his kindnesses and pains in former business, what wrong 
hath he done, if he hath received a present 1 And if there were a suit depend- 
ing, who keeps a register in his heart of all causes, nay, who can amongst 
such a multitude? And for the 6,0001. there is no colour that ever he should 
have had any part thereof. 

For taking away the privilege of the nobility in requiring an oath, he found 
the court possessed of it before he came there ; so that we have no sufficient 
grounds to accuse so great a lord ; but if we shall present articles to the lords, 
what do we (as I said before) but accuse him 1 

Sir Edward Coke. It is objected, that we have but one single witness, 
therefore no sufficient proof. I answer, that in the 37 Eliz. in a complaint against 
soldier-sellers, i. e. such as having warrants to take up soldiers for the wars, 
if they pressed a rich man's son, for money they would discharge him, there 
was no more but singularis testis in one matter ; but though they were single 
witnesses in several matters, yet agreeing in one and the same third person, it 
was held sufficient to prove a work of darkness, for in such works it is a marvel 
there are any. But some object that these men are culpable, and therefore no 
competent witnesses. I answer, they came not to accuse, but were interro- 



NOTE G G G. 

gated : if I be interrogated, I had rather speak truth than respect any man ; 
and you will make bribery to be unpunished, if he who carrieth the bribe shall 
not be a witness. In this one witness is sufficient. He that accuseth himself 
by accusing another, is more than three witnesses, and this was wrought out 
of them. 

It was ordered that the complaint of Awbrey and Egerton against the Lord 
Chancellor and the bishop for corruption for the 100/. and 4001. and the 
recognizance should be drawn up by Sir Robert Philips, Sir Edward Coke, 
Mr. Noy, and Sir Dudley Diggs, and be related to the Lords without prejudice 
or opinion at a conference, and a message to be sent for this purpose on Monday. 
Adjourned, &c. 

[2ndly. From the Journals. — 17th March.] 

Sir R. Phillips reported : that, in Egerton* s case, it now appeared, by view 
of orders, that, at the time of the presenting my lord with the 400/. before, and 
after, a suit in chancery depending. An order made 28th Maii, another 3rd 
Junii, and another of July : mean between these, this 400/. given. The same 
time some suits in chancery. 

That Robert Egerton petitioned the king, who referred it to my Lord Chan- 
cellor. Bonds of 10,000 marks apiece, to stand to his award. An award 
made : refused by Edward Egerton. A suit, by Lord Chancellor's direction, 
commenced in chancery ; and the bonds of 10,000 marks assigned over to Sir 
Row. Egerton. 

The recognizance of 10,000/. to Field and Damport, as in the notes at the 
committee, for the motion, and answer, of, and to, my lord of Buck'. That 
Field was to have a great share ; and Damport, as he said, a share also, so 
great, as, he thought, no suit in any court would have afforded. 

Sir George Hastinges : that, out of commisseration of the poor man's person 
and estate, he gave way to this by-way ; for which sorry, and craveth pardon. 
Sir George Hastinges required to deliver the truth, upon his credit. 
That, about three weeks, he was sent for, by one of my lord's men, from 
Hackney : that my lord, in his bed, putting away his servants out of the cham- 
ber, told him, he hoped, he loved him so well, he hoped, nothing, passing by 
him, should reflect upon my lord ; and required him to take off Awbrey. And 
took Awbrey his petition, carrying it to my lord, desired him to do the party 
that right, as might keep this off from his lordship, and him : which his lord- 
ship promised, wishing his counsel to come : which was done ; but could not 
be heard : and therefore this pursued. 

Mr. Noye : that my Lord Chancellor returned an answer to Egerton, of 
thankfulness ; which could not do, if he had received it of them, as from them- 
selves. 

Mr. Finch : that, sithence these are to be sworn, not to have that set down 
in writing ; and that, if it be set down in writing, it may be done apart. 
Sir D. Digges and Dr. Gouch to do this apart. 

Sir Robert Phillippes craveth pardon, if, through shortness of time, and his 
own wants, shall fail : and that he may add, in the end, that, if any thing else, 
of this kind, appear, they may appear. 

Sir Ro. Phillippes reporteth from the committee for courts of justice, that it 
plainly appeared, in Awbrey his case, that he had a suit depending, before, at, 
and long after, the presenting of the 100/. to the Lord Chancellor. That Sir 
George Hastings had striven between gratefulness to my Lord Chancellor, and 
publick honesty. That he said, that, hoping it would have plained Awbrey his 
way in his suit, received from Awbrey 100/. which he delivered my lord, as 
from himself, to further Awbrey his suit. That Sir George, in summer last, 
acquainted Sir Charles Mount, that he had given this 100/. for this purpose, to 
my Lord Chancellor. That, a killing order made in Awbrey his prejudice, 
Sir George acquainted my lord with it, praying his help of it ; who promised 
it, but performed it not. That this order drawn by Churchill, upon notes deli- 
vered him by a servant or secretary of my Lord Chancellor. 



NOTE G G G. 

Remembereth further, in Awbrey his case, Sir George said lately to my lord, 
he must say, this money was delivered to him by him : whereto my lord ; 
" George, if you do so, I must deny it, upon mine honour." That last night, 
before this committee sat, my lord said to Sir George and Sir Richard Young, 
they must answer this another day ; for he would deny it, upon his oath. 

That, in Egerton's business, he, by Merrifield's help, got money, put it into 
gold ; told Merrifield, my Lord Chancellor was to have it, for help in his 
cause ; and told him, he had done so. 

As Lord Bacon sat in the House of Lords on the 17th, and then sat there, 
for the last time as Chancellor, I infer that there was some communication 
between him and Buckingham between the 17th and the 19th, and that the 
following letter was written during this interval : 

To the Marquis of Buckingam. (a) 

My very good Lord, — Your lordship spoke of purgatory. I am now in it ; 
but my mind is in a calm, for my fortune is not my felicity. I know I have 
clean hands, and a clean heart ; and, I hope, a clean house for friends or ser- 
vants. But Job himself, or whosoever was the justest judge, by such hunting 
for matters against him as hath been used against me, may for a time seem 
foul, especially in a time when greatness is the mark, and accusation is the 
game. And if this be to be a chancellor, I think, if the great seal lay upon 
Hounslow Heath, no body would take it up. But the King and your lordship 
will, I hope, put an end to these my straits one way or other. And in troth 
that which I fear most is, lest continual attendance and business, together with 
these cares, and want of time to do my weak body right this spring by diet and 
physic, will cast me down ; and that it will be thought feigning or fainting. 
But I hope in God I shall hold out. God prosper you. 

The following anecdotes seem proper for this place : 

Extract d'un Lettre de Monsieur le Chevalier Digby a M. de Fermat. 

Et comme vous y parley de notre Chancellier Bacon, cela me fit souvenir 
d'un autre beau mot qu'il dit en ma presence une fois a feu Monsieur le Due 
de Buckingham. C'etoit au commencement de ses malheurs, quand l'assem- 
blee des etats, que nous appellons le parlement, entreprit de la miner, ce qu'elle 
fit en suite ee jour la il eu eut la premiere alarme : j'etois avec le due ay ant 
disne avec lui ; le chancelier survint et l'entretint de l'accusation qu'un de 
ceux de la chambre basse avoit presentee contre lui, et il supplia le due i'em- 
ployer son credit aupres du roi pour le maintenir toujours dans son esprit : le 
due repondit qu'il etoit si bien avec le roi leur maitre, qu'il n'etoit pas besoin 
de lui rendre de bons offices aupres de sa majeste, ce qu'il disoit, non pas pour 
le refuser, car il aimoit beaucoup, mais pour lui faire plus d'honneur : le chan- 
celier lui repondit de tres-bonne grace, qu'en il croyoit etre parfaitement bien 
" dans l'esprit de son maitre, mais aussi qu'il avoit toujour remarque que pour 
si grand que soit un feu, et pour si fortement qu'il brule de lui-meme, il ne 
laissera pourtant pas de bruler mieux et d'etre plus beau et plus clair si on le 
souffle comme il faut." 

One told his lordship it was now time to look about him. He replied, " I 
do not look about me, I look above me." 

[From the Tract.] 

Lunse, 19th Martii, 1620. — A message was sent to the Lords by Sir Robert 
Phillips to desire a conference with them about the Lord Chancellor and Bishop 
of Landaff being petitioned against by Awbrey and Egerton. 

Mr. Secretary Calvert brings a message from the king, that this parliament 

(a) This letter seems to have been written soon after Lord St. Alban began 
to be accused of abuses in his office of chancellor. 



KOTE GGG. 

hath sat a long time, and Easter is near come, and it's fit there should be a ces- 
sation for a time, yet the king will appoint no time, but leaves it to yourselves. 
But for the beginning again, he thinks the 10th of April a fit time, but will 
appoint none, only he would have you take care, that there be no impediment 
in the subsidies. The king also took notice of the complaints against the Lord 
Chancellor, for which he was sorry : for it hath always been his care to have 
placed the best; but no man can prevent such accidents. But his comfort 
was, that the house was careful to preserve his honour. And his majesty 
thought not fit to have the occasions hang long in suspence, therefore would not 
have any thing to hinder it ; but for the furtherance thereof, he proposed a com- 
mission of six of the higher house, and twelve of the lower house to examine if 
upon oath. This proposition, if we liked it well, he would send the like to the 
lords ; and this he thought might be done during this cessation ; and though he 
hoped the chancellor was free, yet if he should be found guilty, he doubted not 
but you would do him justice. 

Sir Edward Coke said, we should take heed the commission did no hinder 
the manner of our parliamentary proceedings. 

The answer returned to the king, was, rendering thanks for the first part of 
his gracious message ; and for the second, we direct that the like message may 
be sent to the lords, for there being so good a concurrence betwixt us, we may 
have conference with them about it. Then adjourned. 

[From the Journals.] 

Die Lunae, videlicet, 19th die Martii, Domini tam Spirituales quam Tem- 
porales, quorum nomina subscribuntur, praesentes fuerunt : 
p. Carolus, Princeps Wallise, etc. 
Archiepus, Cant. p. Jac, Ley, Miles, et Bar. Ds. Capita 

p< Archiepus, Eborum, Justic. Locum tenens, etc. 

Memorandum, that, by reason of the want of health and indisposition of the 
Lord Chancellor, a commission was awarded to Sir James Ley, knt. and bart. 
Lord Chief Justice of the King's Bench, signed by the king, and under the 
broad seal, to execute the same place ; the which commission was delivered to 
the clerk, to be read. 

Message from the lower house, by Sir Robert Phillipps and others, 

That, in the search of the abuses of courts, they have found abuses in certain 
eminent persons ; for the which they desire a conference ; that such course may 
be taken, for redress thereof, as shall stand with the order and dignity of a par- 
liament ; the time and place, and number of committees, they humbly leave to 
their lordships. 

Answer returned, 

The lords are well pleased to accept of the conference required ; the com- 
mittee to be of this whole house, at two of the clock this afternoon, in the 
painted chamber. 

[From the Tracts.] 

Martis, 20 Martii, 1620. — Sir Edward Giles made a motion that one Churchill 
should be called in ; whereupon there was a petition of one Montacute Wood, 
&c. against my Lord Chancellor for taking 300/. of the Lady Wharton, and 
making orders, &c. which was read, Churchill and Keeling were said to be 
witnesses, and a committee was appointed to examine them. 

Sir Pvobert Phillips reports from the conference that, according to the com- 
mandment of this house, he had delivered those heads which were agreed on at 
the conference yesterday, excusing himself, if he had failed in any point; that 
the lords accepted it with a great deal of affection, as sensible of the wrongs of 
the commonwealth ; returned answer by the Lord Treasurer, first by way of 
question, whether we would not return it them in writing 1 Resolved, no, for 
no cause, this consisting only of two or three points clear and plain. Next for 
the letters, and other things which the lords desire would acquaint the house, 
and doubted not but it would be yielded , that they would proceed in this mat- 
ter with care and diligence, and expedition. 



NOTE G G G. 

A message from the lords, to signify that they have taken into consideration 
the last conference, and shall need the testimony of two members of this 
house ; and therefore desire that voluntarily, and without ordering, as private 
persons, they make declaration upon oath, and the like for others, if occasion 
were. 

Answer returned, that the gentlemen would attend voluntarily as private men, 
and (upon private notice) be examined. 

Sir Robert Phillips reports from the committee appointed for the examination 
of Churchill, from which particular a general may be extracted, conducing to 
the discovery of corruption in the Lord Chancellor. 

The Lady Wharton having a cause depending in chancery, many orders 
were made in it ; amongst the rest, there was an order made for dismission, by 
the consent of the counsel on both sides ; which my lady disliking, took 
Churchill, the Register, into her coach, carried him to my Lord Chancellor's, 
and so wrought, that he was willed not to enter the last order ; so that my lady 
was left at liberty to prosecute it in chancery, brought it to a hearing, and at 
length got a decree. Keeling being examined, saith, that near about the time 
of passing this decree, my lady took 100/. he saw it, and she made him set 
down the words and stiles, which she would use in the delivery of it. Then 
she goeth to York House, and delivered it to my Lord Chancellor, as she told 
him. She carried it in a purse ; my lord asked her what she had in her hand 1 
She said, a purse of her own making, and presented it to him ; who took it, 
and said, what lord could refuse a purse of so fair a lady's working ! After 
this, my lord made a decree for her, but it was not perfected ; but 200/- more 
being given, (one Gardener being present), her decree had life. But after the 
giving of the 100/. because she had not 200/. ready in money, one Shute dealt 
with her to pass over the land to my Lord Chancellor, and his heirs, reserving 
an estate for life to herself; but she knowing no reason to disinherit her own 
children, and confer it upon a lord who had no children, asked Keeling, her 
man, what he thought of it? He, like an honest servant, was against it. 
Shute knowing this, sets upon Keeling, and brought him to be willing my lady 
should do it, with power of revocation upon payment of 200/. in a reasonable 
time. Keeling lets fall some speeches, as if he had left York House for the 
corruption which was there, which he himself knew in part. Gardener, Keel- 
ing's man, confirmed the payment of the 300/, for the decree, viz. 100/. before, 
and 200/. after. This purchased decree being lately damned again by my 
Lord Chancellor, was the cause of this complaint. 

Keeling saith, Sir John Trevor did present my Lord Chancellor with 100/. 
by the hands of Sir Richard Young, for a final end to his cause. Sir Richard 
Young answered, that when he attended upon my Lord Chancellor, Sir John 
Trevor's man brought a cabinet, and a letter to my Lord Chancellor, and en- 
treated me to deliver it, which I did openly ; and this was openly done, and 
this was all I knew of it. 

Sir Edward Coke said, it was strange to him that this money should be thus 
openly delivered, and that one Gardener should be present at the payment of 
the 200/. 

Ordered, 

That Sir Robert Phillips do deliver to the lords this afternoon the Bishop of 
LlandafF's and Awbrey's letters, and all other writings that he hath. Then 
adjourned. 

[From the Journals.] 

Die Martis, videlicet, 20th die Martii. — The Lord Treasurer reported the 
conference yesterday with the commons. 

At which conference, was delivered the desire of the commons, to inform 
their lordships of the great abuses of the courts of justice; the information 
whereof was divided into three parts : 1. Of the persons accused. 1. Of the 
matters objected against them. 3. Their proof. The persons are, the Lord 
Chancellor of England, and the now Lord Bishop of Landaph (being then no 
bishop, but Doctor Feild). The incomparable good parts of the Lord Chan- 

voi... xv. 23 



NOTE GGG. 

cellor were highly commended ; his place he holds, magnified ; from whence 
bounty, justice, and mercy, were to be distributed to the subjects, with which 
he was solely trusted ; whither all great causes were drawn, and from whence 
no appeal lay for any injustice, or wrong done, save to the parliament. 

That the Lord Chancellor is accused of great bribery and corruption, com- 
mitted by him in this eminent place. Whereof two cases were alleged ; the 
one concerning Christopher Awbrey, the other concerning Edward Egerton. 

In the cause depending in chancery between this Awbrey and Sir William 
Brouncker, Awbrey, feeling some hard measure, was advised to give the Lord 
Chancellor an hundred pounds; the which he delivered to his counsel (Sir 
George Hastings), and he to the Lord Chancellor. This business proceeding 
slowly notwithstanding, Awbrey did write divers letters, and delivered them to 
the Lord Chancellor, but could never have any answer from his lordship ; but 
at last, delivering another letter, his lordship answered, " If he importune him, 
he will lay him by the heels." 

The proofs of this accusation are five : 

1. Sir George Hastings related it long since unto Sir Charles Montague. 
2. The Lord Chancellor, fearing this would be complained of, desired silence 
of Sir George Hastings. 3. Sir George Hastings' testimony thereof, which 
was not voluntary, but urged. 4. The Lord Chancellor desired Sir George 
Hastings to bring the party (Awbrey) unto him, and promised redress of the 
wrongs done him. 5. That the Lord Chancellor said unto Sir George Hastings, 
if he would affirm the giving this hundred pounds, his lordship would and must 
deny it upon his honour. 

The case of Edward Egerton is this. There being suits depending between 
Edward Egerton and Sir Rowland Egerton, in the chancery, Edward Egerton 
presented his lordship (a little after he was Lord Keeper) with a bason and 
ewre of fifty pounds and above ; and afterwards, he delivered unto Sir George 
Hastings and Sir Richard Younge, four hundred pounds in gold, to be pre- 
sented unto his lordship. Sir Richard Younge presented it ; his lordship took 
it, and poised it, and said it was too much, and returned answer, that Mr. 
Egerton had not only inriched him, but had laid a tie upon his lordship to do 
him favour in all his just causes. 

The proofs are, the testimony of Sir George Hastings, and the testimony of 
— Merefyll, a scrivener, thus far, that he took up seven hundred pounds for 
Mr. Egerton, Mr. Egerton then telling him, that a great part of it was to be 
given to the Lord Chancellor; and that Mr. Egerton afterwards told him that 
the four hundred pounds in gold was given to the Lord Chancellor. 

At this conference, was further declared of a bishop, who was touched in this 
business upon the bye, whose function was much honoured, but his person 
touched herein. 

This business (depending) being ordered against Edward Egerton, he pro- 
cured a new reference thereof from the king, to the Lord Chancellor. His 
lordship demanded the parties first to be bound in six thousand marks, to stand 
to his lordship's award ; they having entered into that bond, his lordship 
awarded the matter against Edward Egerton, for Sir Rowland Egerton. And 
Edward Egerton refusing to stand to the said award, a new bill was exhibited 
in the chancery ; and thereupon his lordship ordered that this bond of six thou- 
sand marks should be assigned unto Sir Rowland Egerton, and he to put the 
same in suit, in his lordship's name. The Bishop of Landaph (as a friend 
unto Edward Egerton") adviseth with Randolph Davenport and Butler (which 
Butler is now dead), that they would procure a stay of the decree upon that 
award, and procure a new hearing. It was agreed, that six thousand pounds 
should be given for this by Edward Egerton, and shared amongst them and cer- 
tain honourable persons. A recognizance of ten thousand pounds was required 
from Mr. Egerton to the bishop, for performance hereof ; the bishop's share of 
this six thousand pounds was to have been so great, as no court of justice 
would allow. They produced letters of the bishop's, naming the sum, and 
setting down a course how this six thousand pounds might be raised ; videlicet, 
the land in question to be decreed for Mr. Egerton, and out of that the money 



NOTE GGG. 

to be levied. And, if this were not effected, then the bishop promised, in verba 
sacerdotis, to deliver up the recognizance to be cancelled. The recognizance is 
sealed accordingly ; and Randolph Davenport rides to the court, and moved 
the Lord Admiral for his lordship's letter to the Lord Chancellor herein ; but 
his lordship denied to meddle in a cause depending in suit, Then the said 
Randolph Davenport essayed to get the king's letter, but failed therein also : 
so that the good they intended to Mr. Egerton was not effected ; and yet the 
bishop, though required, refused to deliver up the said recognizance, until Mr. 
Egerton threatened to complain thereof to the king. 

He showed also, that the commons do purpose, that, if any more of this kind 
happen to be complained of before them, they will present the same to your 
lordships ; wherein they shall follow the ancient precedents, which shew that 
great personages have been accused for the like in parliament. 

They humbly desire, that, forasmuch as this concerns a person of so great 
eminency, it may not depend long before your lordships ; that the examination 
of the proofs may be expedited ; and, if he be found guilty, then to be punished ; 
if not guilty, the accusers to be punished. 

This report ended, the Lord Admiral declared, that he had been twice with 
the Lord Chancellor, to visit him, being sent to him by the king. The first 
lime, he found his lordship very sick and heavy ; the second time he found 
him better, and much comforted, for that he heard that the complaint of the 
grievances of the commons against him were come into this house ; where he 
assured himself to find honourable justice ; in confidence whereof, his lordship 
had written a letter to the house. The which letter the Lord Admiral presented 
to the house, to be read ; the tenor whereof followeth : 

" To the Right Honourable his very good Lords, the Lords Spiritual and 
Temporal in the Upper House of Parliament assembled. 

" My very good lords, 

'* I humbly pray your lordships all to make a favourable and true construc- 
tion of my absence. It is no feigning, nor fainting, but sickness both of my 
heart and of my back ; though joined with that comfort of mind, that per- 
swadeth me, that I am not far from heaven, whereof I feel the first fruits. 
And because, whether I live or die, I would be glad to preserve my honour 
and fame, as far as I am worthy, hearing that some complaints of base bribery 
are come before your lordships, my requests unto your lordships are : first, that 
you will maintain me in your good opinion, without prejudice, until my cause 
be heard ; secondly, that, in regard I have sequestred my mind at this time, in 
gTeat part, from worldly matters, thinking of my account and answer in a higher 
court, your lordships would give me some convenient time, according to the 
course of other courts, to advise with my counsel, and to make my answer, 
wherein nevertheless my counsel's part will be the least ; for I shall not, by the 
grace of God, trick up an innocency with cavillations ; but plainly and ingenu- 
ously (as your lordships know my manner is) declare what I know or remem- 
ber ; thirdly, that, according to the course of justice, I may be allowed to 
except to the witnesses brought against me, and to move questions to your 
lordships for their cross examination, and likewise to produce my own witnesses 
for discovery of the truth : and lastly, if there come any more petitions of like 
nature, that your lordships would be pleased not to take any prejudice or appre- 
hension of any number or muster of them, especially against a judge that makes 
two thousand decrees and orders in a year (not to speak of the courses that 
have been taken for hunting out complaints against me) ; but that I may 
answer them, according to the rules of justice, severally and respectively. 
These requests, I hope, appear to your lordships no other than just. And so, 
thinking myself happy, to have so noble peers and reverend prelates to discern 
of my cause, and desiring no privilege of greatness for subterfuge of guiltiness ; 
but meaning (as I said) to deal fairly and plainly with your lordships, and to 
put myself upon your honours and favours, I piay God to bless your counsels 
and your persons ; and rest " Your lordships' humble servant, 

19th March, 1620 " Fr. St. Alban, Cane." 



NOTE GGG. 

The clerk, having read the letter, delivered the same to the Lord Chief Jus- 
tice ; who, by repetition, read the same also. 

The Lord Bishop of Landaph admitted to speak for his defence of the accu- 
sation of Brocage, in a bribe intended to the Lord Chancellor, in Mr. Egerton's 
cause ; shewed his grief, that he remained accused, arraigned, condemned, and 
executed, in dicta causa ; for although he should (as he doubted not to do) 
clear himself, yet the scandal would not die. He shewed, that the party that 
accused him was the party grieved, a man weak and mad with affliction ; as 
for the action whereof he was accused, he was but used therein ; he was 
requested first by Francis Jenour, but refused ; then by Tristram Woodward, 
and then he also denied it; at last the party himself requested him, at whose 
tears he yielded thus far, that the party (videlicet, Edward Egerton) might 
acknowledge unto him a recognizance of six thousand pounds ; it was only 
acknowledged, not enrolled, nor intended to be enrolled ; he was only trusted 
with it for Mr. Egerton's good ; Davenport and others were to be the actors. 
That he discharged his trust accordingly, and delivered back the recognizance, 
though Davenport and others importuned him to the contrary. His aims in this 
action were two : the one, charity, to do Mr. Egerton good ; the other, to prefer 
a beneficial suit to an honourable friend, to whom he owed his very life. If he 
had an eye to some private gain to himself, having wife and children, he had 
therein sinned against God, in not relying only on him for their maintenance, 
but no sum of the share of this six thousand pounds was ever purposed unto 
him. And upon a strict examination of his conscience herein, he protested be- 
fore God, in whose council he stood, and before this honourable assembly, 
" qui estis Dii," inquit, that he was not to have one denier of a share therein. 

The Lord Chamberlain moved, that, for the better consideration of this 
business, and how to proceed to the proofs, the court may be adjourned ad 
placitum, and the whole house sit as a committee. Whereupon the Lord Chief 
Justice removed to his place as an assistant. 

After much debate thereof, the Lord Chief Justice, by direction, returned to 
the place of speaker, and it was agreed, that a message should be sent to the 
Lower House, by Mr. Attorney General and Sir William Bird, to declare unto 
the knights, citizens, and burgesses of the House of Commons, that the Lords 
have, according to the conference yesterday, taken consideration of the complaints 
by them made against the Lord Chancellor, and against the Lord Bishop of 
Landaph ; that they find they have use of three letters written by the said Lord 
Bishop of Landaph, and of other writings (mentioned by them in their said 
complaint), and also of the testimony of two gentlemen, members of that house, 
videlicet, Sir George Hastings and Sir Richard Yonge. In taking of whose 
testimonies, the Lords intend not to touch the privileges of their house, but to 
have the same as of private persons, and not as members of that house, if cause 
shall require, upon the examination of the said abuses complained of. 

Answer returned, that the said two gentlemen, Sir George Hastings and Sir 
"Richard Yonge, will voluntarily, and not by commandment nor direction of 
their house, attend their lordships. That all letters, &c. required shall be sent 
accordingly. As for the general request, that the Lords may send for any 
other members of that house to be examined herein, they humbly pray that 
they may advise thereof. 

Memorandum, that, during the time that the whole house sat as a committee 
as aforesaid, it was debated, and agreed, that the parties undernamed should 
also be sent for, to be sworn and examined in this business : videlicet, 

Christopher Awbrey, Tristram Woodward, 

Ralph Merefill, Francis Jenour, 

Edward Egerton, Randolph Davenport. 

It was now also moved, and much disputed, whether Sir William Broncker 
and Sir Rowland Egerton (the two adversaries of Christopher Awbrey and 
Edward Egerton) should be sent for also, to be examined whether they gave any 
bribe on their part. 

Moved by the Earl of Southampton, and agreed, that an answer should be 



NOTE GOG. 

sent to my Lord Chancellor's letter ; whereupon message is sent to the Lord 
Chancellor, by Sir James Woolridge, to this effect : that the Lords received his 
lordship's letter, delivered unto them by the Lord Admiral ; they intend to pro- 
ceed in his cause (now before their lordships) according to the right rule of jus- 
tice ; and they shall be glad if his lordship shall clear his honour therein ; to 
which end, they pray his lordship to provide for his defence. 

Die Martis, videlicet, 20° die Martii, post meridiem, Domini tam Spirituales 
quam Temporales, quorum nomina subscribuntur, praBsentes fuerunt : 

p. Carolus Princeps Walliae, &c. 
Archiepus. Cant. p. Jac. Ley, Miles et Bar. Ds. Capit. 

p. Archiepus. Eborurn. Justic. Locum tenens, &c. 

Answer from the Lord Chancellor, by Sir James Woolridge : that the Lord 
Chancellor returns the Lords humble thanks for their lordships' assurance of 
justice in his cause, and well wishes to him of the success. The one secures, 
the other comforts him. That he intends to put their lordships in mind hereafter 
of some points contained in his lordship's letter, for that the same were not 
spoken of in the message delivered unto him. 

Sir George Hastings, Knight, and Sir Richard Yonge, Knight, jurati a voir 
dire to all questions asked by the court, or committees, or by any authorized by 
the court, whether their answer be by word or set down in writing. 

Edward Egerton was sworn a voir dire ; and, being sworn, he delivered a 
petition, touching the proceedings in his cause in the Chancery ; cujus quidem 
tenor sequitur in h<zc verba : 

" To the Right Honourable the Lords Spiritual and Temporal in this present 
Parliament assembled. 

" The humble petition of Edward Egerton, Esquire. 

" Humbly sheweth, that your petitioner, being unmarried, and sickly, by 
indenture of uses and other conveyances, entailed divers manors and lands in 
the counties of Chester and Stafford to the use of your petitioner, and the heirs 
males of his body ; and, for default of such issue, to remain to Sir John Egerton 
and his heirs ; which said conveyances were made voluntarily, without any 
consideration paid for the same, with power of revocation. 

" That Sir John Egerton having, by deed executed in his lifetime, conveyed 
all his own lands unto Sir Rowland Egerton, his son and heir, and having 
advanced in marriage all his daughters, did make his last will and testament in 
writing, under his hand and seal, having first bound the said Sir Rowland in a 
statute of five thousand pounds, to perform his said will. 

" That the said Sir John, by his last will, in general words, devised all his 
lordships, manors, lands, tenements, and hereditaments, to your petitioner and 
his heirs, and made your petitioner sole executor. 

" By which said will, all the estate of the said Sir John, in any part of your 
petitioner's lands (if he had any estate therein, as indeed he had not), was law- 
fully devised to your petitioner and his heirs. 

" That the said Sir Rowland Egerton unduly obtained of Sir John Bennett, 
Knight, letters of administration, to be granted unto two of his sisters, after the 
said will exhibited to be proved, whereby your petititioner was put to three 
thousand pounds charges in suits of law. 

" That Sir Rowland Egerton hath also, by indirect means, gotten into his 
hands the said indenture of uses, and all your petitioner's other writings and 
evidences, and refuseth to let your petitioner to see the said indenture of uses, 
or to deliver to your petitioner a true copy thereof ; albeit the same doth in law 
appertain to your petitioner. 

" That the Lord Ellesmere, late Lord Chancellor of England, before the 
probate of the said will, did decree, that the said Sir Rowland shall have and 
enjoy the manor of Wrinehill and Heywood Barnes, being a great part of your 
petitioner's inheritance, worth six hundred pounds per annum, without any 
cause of equity contained in the said decree. 



NOTE GGG. 

" That your petitioner made humble suit unto the Right Honourable Francis 
Viscount St. Alban, now Lord Chancellor of England, to have the benefit of a 
subject, to recover his ancient inheritance, by the ordinary course of the laws, 

" That the now Lord Chancellor took from your petitioner four hundred pounds 
of money in gold, and fifty-two pounds, ten shillings, in silver plate, which 
money was accepted by the said Lord Chancellor, saying, that your petitioner 
did not only enrich him, but also lay a tie upon his lordship to do your petitioner 
justice in his rightful cause. 

" That afterwards the said Lord Chancellor sent for your petitioner, and did, 
by great oaths and protestations, draw your petitioner to seal an obligation to 
his lordship of ten thousand marks, to stand to his lordship's award, for all the 
lands whereof Sir John Egerton died seized only, but not for any other of your 
petitioner's lands. 

" That afterwards your petitioner was divers times sent for by Robert Shar- 
peigh, then steward of his lordship's house ; and your petitioner was several 
times offered, that, if your petitioner would then presently pay eleven hundred 
pounds in ready money ; that is to say, a thousand pounds for his lordship, and 
a hundred pounds for the said Sharpeigh, that then your petitioner would have 
all his lands decreed unto him, which your petitioner could not then presently 
pay in ready money. 

" That afterwards the said Lord Chancellor did not only confirm unto the 
said Sir Rowland the lands which he then held of your petitioner's inheritance, 
being worth six hundred pounds per annum ; but the said Lord Chancellor did 
also take away from your petitioner more lands, worth fifteen thousand pounds, 
and decreed the same also unto the said Sir Rowland Egerton, who did not 
make any title thereunto before the said bond taken, and before the said 
unlawful decree made. And the said Lord Chancellor did also decree, that the 
said bond of ten thousand marks, made by your petitioner to the said Lord 
Chancellor, in his lordship's own name, should be set over and delivered to the 
said Sir Rowland Egerton, who should sue the same in the Lord Chancellor's 
name, and recover upon the same to his own use. 

" And the said Lord Chancellor did further decree, that your petitioner shall 
not take benefit of the statute of five thousand pounds, made by the said Sir 
Rowland to perform the said will ; and your petitioner is restrained, by the said 
decree, from the benefit of a subject, to recover his right, by the ordinary course 
of the common law, without any cause of equity set forth in the said decree. 

" That your petitioner having spent six thousand pounds in suit of law, and 
being deprived of all his said evidences, and being utterly impoverished by the 
evil dealing of the said Lord Chancellor, and by the indirect practices of the 
said Sir Rowland, is likely to be utterly defrauded of all his ancient inheri- 
tance, contrary to the common justice of the land, except he may be relieved 
herein by this high court of parliament. 

" Your petitioner humbly prayeth, that the said Sir Rowland Egerton may 
be ordered to produce, and bring forth upon oath, all such indentures of 
uses, writings, and evidences, as he hath, or any other hath to his use, 
concerning your petitioner's said lands, and whereby he claimeth any 
estate in your petitioner's lands, to the end your honours may judge 
thereof, and to do therein further as to your grave wisdoms shall seem to 
stand with justice." 

The which petition being read, and affirmed by the said Edward Egerton, 
upon his oath, to be true ; the said Edward Egerton was examined also in open 
court. 

Robert Sharpeigh, Esquire, was also sworn, and examined in open court. 

[From the Tract.] 

Mercurii, 21st Martii, 1620. ■ — Sir Robert Philips reports from the committee 

to examine Keeling and Churchill, who informed of many corruptions against 

my Lord Chancellor. 1. In the cause between Hull and Holman : Hull gave 

or lent my lord \000l. since the suit began. 2. In the cause between Worth 



NOTE GGG. 

and Mannering there were 100 pieces given, of which Hunt had 20/. 3. 
Hoddy gave a jewel, which was thought to be worth 500/. but he himself said 
it was a trifle of 100/. or 200/. price ; it was presented to my Lord Chancellor 
by Sir Thomas Peryn and Sir Henry Holmes. 4. In the cause between Pea- 
cock and Reynell, there was much money given on both sides. 5. In the case 
of Barker and Bill ; Barker said he was 8007. in gifts since his suit began. 6. 
In the case between Smithwick and Walsh ; Smithwick gave 300/. yet my lord 
decreed it against him, so he had his money again by piecemeal. In this and 
other cases my lord would decree part ; and when he wanted more money, he 
would send for more money, and decree another part. In most causes my 
lord's servants have undertaken one side or another, insomuch as it was usual 
for counsel, when their clients came unto them, to ask what friend they had at 
York House. 

Mr. Meawtys. Touchiug the persons that inform, I would entreat this ho- 
nourable house to consider, that Keeling is a common solicitor, (to say no more 
of him ;) Churchill a guilty register by his own confession. I know that fear 
of punishment, and hopes of lessening it, may make them to say much, yea, 
more than is truth. For my own part, I must say, I have been an observer of 
my lord's proceedings ; I know he hath sown a good seed of justice, and I hope 
that it will prove, that the envious man hath sown these tares. I humbly 
desire that those generals may not be sent up to the lords, unless these men will 
testify them in particular. 

Ordered, 

That a message be sent to the lords by Sir Robert. Philips to relate the case 
of the Lady Wharton, and the informations of Churchill. 

Sir Robert Philips reports from the lords, that they acknowledged the great 
care of this house in these important businesses ; thanks for the correspondence 
of this house with them, assure the like from them for ever to this house. In 
these and all other things will advise, and return answer as soon as possible. 
Then adjourned. 

[From the Journals.] 

March 21 ; 18th James. Hull and Holman.— Sir R. Philips. Another 
case ; Hull and Holman. Holman, refusing to answer, committed ; there lay 
twenty weeks : after required to answer, and to give bond of 20,000/. to stand 
to my Lord Chancellor's order in it. That one Manby, about the Exchange, 
dealt in this business with Mr. Mewtys. That Holman, finding his order vary, 
resolved to complain to this house. That, upon Friday last, my lord sent for 
Hull and Holman ; offered to make an indiffeient end between them : and that 
Holman told Keeling, he was an happy man now, he could have any thing from 
my Lord Chancellor. 

March 21 ; 18th James. Smythwicke. — The other case, between Smyth- 

wicke and Smythwicke was told, he must use some good way : came 

to Mr. Yong ; promised my lord 200/. so as the certificate might be decreed : 
dealt after with Burrowes : he undertook to move my lord. He heard the 
cause: part of the award decreed. The 200/. paid. That, unless my lord 
might have 100/. more, no further proceeding. That Smythwicke brought Bur- 
rowes 70/. part of the 100/. The cause yet deferred. Brought the other 30/. 
to Hunt, who, Burrowes said, had most part of the money. The former part of 
the decree now again questioned, Smythwicke demanded his money. 

Hunt. That he had disbursed it for my lord, and given my lord accounts 
for it. Hunt advised Smythwicke to petition my lord, to have leave to sue 
Hunt for this money. That Hunt promising the re-payment of the money. 

That he received, from Boroughe and Hunt, all his money again, but 20/. 
which kept from him a year, and then repaid him by Hunt. 

Mercurii, 21st Martii ; 18th Jacobi. Lady Wharton. — Sir Robert Philips. 
That Gardyner's man afrirmeth, that, three days before the hearing of the cause, 
the Lady Wharton put 100/. in a purse, went to Yorke House, and, as she said 
after, gave it my lord. That, in after, she put 200/. more into a purse, 



NOTE GOG. 

and took the money from Gardener at Yorke House, went in to my lord, and, 
as she said, delivered it to my lord ; and had after presently the decree. 

For the general : time given to him, to set down in writing, against to-morrow 
morning, the particulars he knoweth. 

For the particular : Churchill, that, before October was twelvemonth, an 
order for dismission on both parts: the day after, Churchill, Lady Wharton 
took him in her coach, carried him to Yorke House : there she spake with my 
lord. Thereupon Churchill ordered to stay the dismission of Lady Wharton, 
but to suffer the other to stand. A decree upon this. 

Keeling, examined, confesseth that, near about passing this decree, took 
100/. made Keeling write down the words she should use to my lord, at her 
presenting it. 1001. delivered in a purse, of her own working. This decree 
made de bene esse. Made in October ; but stayed till about June after, even 
till she paid my Lord Chancellor 200/. more. That Shute persuaded Lady 
Wharton to confer the land upon my Lord Chancellor: that she would not 
yield, till had spoken with Keeling. Shute persuaded Keeling ; who would 
not yield without a power of revocation. That, upon this, the composition of 
300/. followed. 

Keeling let fall words, that he had left Yorke House, upon the general cor- 
ruption he found there, and the altering of divers agreements had been there 
made. 

Keeling saith, he soliciting a cause between Sir John Trevor and Askew ; 
where six injunctions, &c. and, for a final end, Sir John Trevor gave my lord 
100/. by Sir Richard Yonge's hands. Five pieces for a day of hearing last 
Michaelmas term : Clayton a monopoly of this. 40.s. for an hearing ; 3/. and 
41. for an injunction. 

That this petition hath brought forth a copy of another petition. 

Sir Richard Yong : That, in Christmas holidays, a man of Sir John Tre- 
vor's brought him a letter to my lord, and a cabinet ; which he delivered my 
lord openly, and delivered it to my lord. 

Sir Edward Coke : Strange to him, that this money should be thus openly 
delivered ; and that one Gardyner should be present at the payment of the 
200/. 

Sir Robert Philips, after these things, set down by Churchill and Keeling, 
shall be presented, and heard in this house, Sir Robert Philips shall, at the 
lords' next sitting, deliver these things to the lords. 

Sir Robert Philips to deliver to the lords, this afternoon, three letters from 
Landaphe to Edward Egerton ; three copies of letters from Awbrey to the Lord 
Chancellor ; a copy of the recognizance of 10,000/. and of a defeazance ; and 
divers orders, and one under seal, De executione ordinis ; to be presented to the 
lords ; and all other writings, Sir Robert Philips hath. 

A paper of direction delivered in from Churchill : which read. 

Which sent to the lords by Sir Robert Philips ; but they were risen before, 
and so the messenger returned. 

Mr. Mewtys : Keeling a common solicitor, Churchill a guilty register. Fear 
of punishment, and hope to escape, may make them speak untruly. 

That a servant to my lord ; an eye and ear-witness, for four years. That, in 
this time, my lord hath sown much good seed of justice; and that only the en- 
vious man hath sown the tares. Moveth, whether this general accusation fit to 
be sent up to my lords, without particular application. 

Sir Robert Philips : That this fit for the lords now. 

[From the Journals.] 
Die Mercurii, videlicet, 21st die Martii. — Edward Egerton, upon humble 
suit, was admitted to deliver the names of these witnesses he desired to have 
sworn and examined touching his cause. 

Witnesses sworn in open court, in causa Domini Cancellarii: 
Sir George Reynell, knt. Sir Thomas Peryn, knt. 

George Hull, Mercer of London. John Hunt. 

Sir Henry Helmes, knt, Edward Sherburne. 



NOTE GGG. 

William Peacocke. Robert Barker. 

Robert Pye. Thomas Mewtys. 

Richard Keeling. George Norbury. 

Anthony Gardiner. Thomas Bowker. 

Bouham Norton. Frauncis Kinge. 

Memorandum — -Forasmuch as the examinations of these witnesses would 
require much time, it was agreed, that the committees should transmit the 
names of some of the principallest of them, and the heads whereupon they were 
to be examined, and the examinations to be taken in open court 

The form of the oath agreed upon : 

" You shall swear, that you shall true answer make to all such questions and 
interrogatories as shall be mentioned unto you by this high court, or by the 
lords the committees, or by any person or persons authorized by this high court. 
You shall say the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth; and you 
shall not spare to do so, neither for fear, favour, affection, or any other cause 
whatsoever ; whether your depositions be in writing or by word of mouth. So 
help you God, and the contents of this book." 

Interrogatories to be ministred to them that shall be so transmitted to be exa- 
mined in open court : 

" 1. Whether they, by themselves, or any other person, have given money, 
or other gratuity, to the Lord Chancellor, or to any other servants, friends, or 
follower of his 1 

" 2. Whether they have advised or directed any so to do, or known of any 
other that hath so done 1 

" 3. Whether they, or the parties which they advised so to do, or have heard 
so to have done, had then any cause or suit depending before him, or intended 
to have any ! 

" 4. Whether they have intended, attempted, or known others that have 
attempted or contracted for any gratuity, so to be given, though not per- 
formed ? " 

Sir George Renell examined in open court. 

He did also set down his knowledge of bribes given by him to the Lord 
Chancellor, in writing under his hand, and delivered the same upon his oath. 

Ordered — No witnesses to be examined what they received themselves, but 
only what bribes were given to the Lord Chancellor. 

Message from the lower house, by Sir Robert Philips and others : 

Moved, That the Lord Chief Justice should not relate the message unto the 
house until the prince be present, who was desirous to hear the same. 

Answer to the commons in the mean time, that the lords take notice of the 
great care and industry used (by the lower house) in the search and examina- 
tion of these great grievances now complained of; for which they give them 
hearty thanks, and will hold correspondence with them therein, as is desired. 
And, when the lords are resolved of the recess of this parliament, and when to 
meet again ; notice thereof shall be given, as they likewise desire. 

Thomas Mewtys examined in open court, touching bribes given to the Lord 
Chancellor, * Oath ; he desired respite until to-morrow, to set down in writing 
his full knowledge herein upon his oath. 

John Hunt examined also in open court, touching the same, and required to 
set the same down in writing under his hand and upon oath, and deliver the 
same in open court to-morrow morning. 

Edward Shereburne examined in open court ; and Memorandum, the said 
Edward Shereburne was admitted to explain himself upon his former examina- 
tion ; which being done, he also was required to set down in writing his know- 
ledge therein, and deliver the same in open court to-morrow morning, signed 
with his own hand. 

Randolph Davenport examined in open court. 

Robert Barker examined in open court, touching the same ; and ordered to 

* Sic in Origin. 
vol. xv. 24 



NOTE G GG. 

set down his full knowledge therein in writing, under his hand, and deliver the 
same in open court to-morrow morning. 

Dominus capitalis justiciarius, locum tenens Domini Cancellarii, declaravit 
praesens parliamentum continuandum esse usque in diem crastinum, videlicet, 
diem Jovis, 22 Martii, Dominis sic decernentibus. 

[From the Journals.] 
Die Jovis, videlicet, 22nd die Martii, Domini tarn spirituales quam tem- 
porales, quorum nomina obscribuntur, praesentes fuerunt : 

p. Carolus Princeps Walliae, etc. 
Archiepus. Cant. p. Jac. Ley, Miles et Bar. Ds. 

p. Archiepus. Eborum. Capit. Justic. Locum tenens, 

Epus. London. &c. 

Jurati in causa Domini Cancellarii : videlicet, 

Richard Scott. Thomas Manwood. 

Thomas Taylor. Sir Jo. Fynnett. 

Sir Edward Fisher. Sir Eubulo Thelwall. 

Philip Hollman. John Hankey. 

Henry Manley. John Yong. 

Arthur Blackmore. William Hatcher. 
James Rolphe. 

The Lord Chief Justice related the message delivered yesterday from the 
lower house, by Sir Robert Philips and others : 

The which consisted of two parts : the one of matter of respect, the other of 
substance. 

In the one, they acknowledged the good correspondence between both the 
houses, especially in the examination of the grievances complained of, and 
presented to the lords ; with humble thanks for the supply the lords added to 
their labours, in giving the oath unto the examinants, which they cannot do. 
They humbly desire to know the time of the recess of this parliament, and of 
the access again, as they may accordingly depart and meet again at the same 
time their lordships shall. 

The second, being matter of substance, consisted of four points objected 
against the Lord Chancellor. 

1. The first, a suit in the chancery being between the Lady Wharton, plain- 
tiff, and Wood and others, defendants, upon cross bills ; the Lord Chancellor, 
upon hearing, wholly dismissed them. But, upon the entry of the order, the 
cross bill against the Lady Wharton was only dismissed. And afterwards, for 
a bribe of 300/. given by the Lady Wharton to the Lord Chancellor, his lord- 
ship decreed the cause for her ; and then, hearing that Wood antLthe other 
defendants complained thereof to the commons, his lordship sent for them, and 
damned that decree, as unduly gotten ; and, when the Lady Wharton began to 
complain thereof, his lordship sent for her also, and promised her redress, say- 
ing, " That decree is not yet ended." 

Secondly, in a suit, between Hull, plaintiff, and Hollman, defendant, Holl- 
man, deferring his answer, was committed to the Fleet, where he lay twenty 
weeks, and, petitioning to be delivered, was answered by some about the Lord 
Chancellor, the bill shall be decreed against him (pro confesso), unless he 
would enter into 2000/. bond to stand to the Lord Chancellor's order ; which 
he refusing, his liberty cost him, one way and other, better than 1000/. Holl- 
man being freed out of the Fleet, Hull petitioned to the Lord Chancellor, and 
Hollman, finding his cause to go hard on his side, complained to the commons ; 
whereupon the Lord Chancellor sent for him, and, to pacify him, told him, he 
should have what order he would himself. 

Thirdly, in the cause between Smithwick and Wyche, the matter in question 
being for accompts { the merchants, to whom it was referred, certified on the 
behalf of Smithwick ; yet Smythwicke, to obtain a decree in his cause, was 
told by one Mr. Borough (one near the Lord Chancellor), that it must cost him 






NOTE GGG. 

2001. which he paid to Mr. Borough, or Mr. Hunt, to the use of the Lord 
Chancellor ; and yet the Lord Chancellor decreed but one part of the certifi- 
cate ; whereupon he treats again with Mr. Borough, who demanded another 
100Z. which Smithwycke also paid, to the use of the Lord Chancellor ; then his 
lordship referred the aecompts again to the same merchants, who certified again 
for Smithwycke ; yet his lordship decreed the second part of the certificate 
against Smithwycke, and the first part (which was formerly decreed for him) 
his lordship made doubtful. Smithwycke petitioned to the Lord Chancellor for 
his money again, and had it all, save 20/. kept back by Hunt for a year. 

The Lord Chief Justice also delivered the three petitions, which his lordship 
received yesterday from the commons; the first by the Lady Wharton ; the 
second by Wood and Pargitor and others ; the third by Smithwycke. 

Fourthly, the fourth part of the message consisted only of instructions deli- 
vered to the commons by one Churchill, a register, containing divers bribes and 
abuses in the chancery, which the commons desire may be examined. 

Robert Barker delivered his depositions in writing, under his hand, of a bribe 
given by him to the Lord Chancellor ; which was read, and he dismissed from 
further attendance. 

John Hunt also delivered his deposition, signed with his hand, touching 
bribes given to the Lord Chancellor; which was read, and he dismissed from 
further attendance. 

Edward Shereborne delivered his depositions also, signed with his hand, 
touching bribes given to the Lord Chancellor ; which was read, and he com- 
manded to attend. 

William Peacock delivered his deposition, signed with his hand, which was 
read ; but, for that it was not so full as he delivered it yesterday in court, the 
same was delivered to him again, to add his further knowledge therein, and also 
to set down what security he had from the Lord Chancellor for repayment of 
the 1000/. which he lent his lordship, and the time of repayment thereof, and 
the use (if any) to be answered for the same ; and to set down whether he had 
spoken with any of the Lord Chancellor's servanls since he was examined yes- 
terday, and what the conference was. He confessed he had spoken since with 
Edward Shereborne. 

The confession and instructions of John Churchill touching bribery and cor- 
ruption of the Lord Chancellor was read : 

And memorandum, that presently upon the reading thereof the said confes- 
sion and instructions, together with the three petitions sent from the commons, 
were delivered to the lords' committees appointed to examine the same. 

Upon the motion of Lord Houghton for precedents to be produced touching 
judicature, attestations, and judgments, anciently used in the high court of 
parliament. 

It was ordered, that a committee of a small number should presently take 
care for the search thereof amongst the records remaining in the Tower, or else- 
where ; copies of the same to be also certified under the officer's hands. 

The names of the committees ; 
E. of Huntingdon. 
E. of Warwick. 
L. Haughton. 

Memorandum, the clerk made a warrant, under his hand, to all officers, to 
permit the said lords' committees to make search, amongst the said records, and 
the officers to subscribe notes or copies thereof, without fee. 

In causa Domini Cancellarii, jurati fuerunt : 
Peter Vanlor. John Heme. 

George Morgan. Lady Dorothy Wharton. 

[From the Journals.] 
Die Veneris, videlicet, 23d die Martii. — It was also agreed, that the three 
former committees, or any two lords of either of the said committees, appointed 



NOTE G G G. 

to examine witnesses (in causa Domini Cancellarii), may, from time to time 
hereafter, examine any witnesses touching the said cause, between the recess 
and access. 

Jurati in causa Domini Cancellarii : 
Sir Robert Bassett, knt. John May. 

Francis Broad. John Haward. 

James Kennedie. Richard Burrell. 

Edward Shereborne having been divers times examined (in causa Domini 
Cancellarii, prout antea), is licensed to depart, but to attend again upon new 
warning. 

The petition of Edward Egerton was read, whereby he humbly desired, Sir 
Rowland Egerton to be ordered forthwith to produce upon oath certain inden- 
tures and writings, unduly gotten from the petitioner. 

Ordered, ex motione Domini Sheffeild, this petition to remain with the clerk, 
until the corruption and bribery complained of be determined, and then the 
lords will take it into their consideration. 

In causa Domini Cancellarii : 

Sir Ralph Hansby, knt. sworn. 

The Earl of South'ton shewed, that the said Sir Ralph Hansby, being exa- 
mined by his lordship and others of a bribe of 500/. given by himself to the 
Lord Chancellor, that the said Sir Ralph made a doubt whether his answer 
thereunto might not be prejudicial to his cause. Wherefore their lordships' 
resolution herein was required ; whether the said Sir Ralph should be urged to 
make his answer hereunto or no. 

After long debate of this matter, it was ordered, that the examinations taken 
in this court should not be hereafter used in any other cause, nor in any other 
court. 

And although divers of the lords were of opinion, that the parties' confession 
of the giving of a bribe should not be prejudicial at all unto him ; yet divers 
doubted thereof. 

Whereupon it was put to the question, whether the said Sir Ralph shall be 
examined what gift or reward he hath given to the Lord Chancellor ; it was 
agreed, he should be examined thereupon. 

The lords' committees appointed yesterday to search for precedents, videlicet, 
the Earl of Huntingdon, the Earl of Warwick, and the Lord Haughton, re- 
turned from the Tower. 

The Earl of Huntingdon made report of their search and view of the re- 
cords ; and the Earl of Warwick read the heads of the precedents, and then 
delivered the notes taken out of the records, and signed by the officer, unto the 
clerk, to be kept. 

25th March. 
To the Marquis ©f Buckingham. 
My very good lord, 
Yesterday I know was no day ; now I hope T shall hear from your lordship, 
who are my anchor in these flouds. Meanwhile to ease my heart, I have 
written to his majesty the inclosed, which I pray your lordship to read ad- 
visedly, and to deliver it, or not to deliver it, as you think good. God ever 
prosper your lordship. Yours ever, &c. 

25th March, 1621. Fr. St. Alban, Cane. 

To the King. 

It may please your most excellent majesty, 
Time hath been, when I have brought unto you Gemitum Columbce, from 
others, now I bring it from myself. I fly unto your majesty, with the wings of 
a dove, which once within these seven days, I thought would have carried me 
a higher flight. When I enter into myself, I find not the materials of such 
a tempest as is come upon me. I have been (as your majesty knoweth best) 



NOTE GGG. 

never author of any immoderate counsel, but always desired to have things 
carried suavibus modis. I have been no avaricious oppressor of the people. I 
have been no haughty, or intolerable, or hateful man, in my conversation or 
carriage : I have inherited no hatred from my father, but am a good patriot 
born. Whence should this be 1 For these are the things that used to raise dis- 
likes abroad. 

For the house of commons, I began my credit there, and now it must be the 
place of the sepulture thereof; and yet this parliament, upon the message 
touching religion, the old love revived, and they said, I was the same man still, 
only honesty was turned into honour. 

For the upper house, even within these days, before these troubles, they 
seemed as to take me into their arms, finding in me ingenuity, which they took 
to be the true streight-line of nobleness, without any crookes or angles. 

And for the briberies and gifts, wherewith I am charged, when the books of 
hearts shall be opened, I hope, I shall not be found to have the troubled foun- 
tain of a corrupt heart, in a depraved habit of taking rewards to pervert justice ; 
howsoever I may be frail, and partake of the abuses of the times. 

And therefore, I am resolved, when I come to my answer, not to trick my 
innocency, (as I writ to the lords) by cavillations, or voydances ; but to speak 
to them the language, that my heart speaketh to me, in excusing, extenuating, 
or ingenuously confessing : praying to God to give me the grace to see the bot- 
tom of my faults, and that no hardness of heart do steal upon me, under shew 
of more neatness of conscience, than is cause. But not to trouble your majesty 
any longer, craving pardon for this long mourning letter ; that which I thirst 
after, as the hart after the streams, is, that I may know, by my matchless 
friend that presenteth to you this letter, your majesty's heart (which is an 
abyssus of goodness as I am an abyssus of misery) towards me. I have been 
ever your man, and counted myself but an usufructuary of myself, the property 
being yours. And now making myself an oblation to do with me as may best 
conduce to the honour of your justice, the honour of your mercy, and the use 
of your service, resting as clay in your majesty's gracious hands, 

Fr. St. Alban, Cane 

27th March.— On the 27th of March both houses adjourned till the 17th of 
April. 

During this recess there was a private interview between the King and the 
Lord Chancellor. 

This appears, 1st, from an entry in the journals of the house of lords ; 2dly, 
from a statement by Mr. Bushel ; and, 3dly, from a letter written after the 
interview. 

The following is the extract from the journals of the house of lords of 
April 17. 

The Lord Treasurer signified, that in the interim of this cessation, the Lord 
Chancellor was an humble suitor unto his majesty, that he might see his 
majesty and speak with him ; and although his majesty, in respect of the Lord 
Chancellor's person, and of the place he holds, might have given his lordship 
that favour, yet, for that his lordship is under the trial of this house his majesty 
would not on the sudden grant it. 

That, on Sunday last, the king calling all the lords of this house which were 
of his council before him, it pleased his majesty to shew their lordships what 
was desired by the Lord Chancellor, demanding their lordships advice therein. 

The lords did not presume to advise his majesty ; for that his majesty did 
suddenly propound such a course as all the world could not advise a better ; 
which was, that his majesty would speak with him privately. 

That yesterday, his majesty admitting the Lord Chancellor to his presence, 
his lordship desired that he might have a particular of those matters wherewith 
he is charged before the lords of this house ; for that it was not possible for 
him, who past so many orders and decrees in a year, to remember all things 
that fell out in them ; and that, this being granted, his lordship would desire 
two requests of his majesty. 1. That, where his answers should be fair and 



NOTE G G G. 

clear to those things objected against him, his lordship might stand upon his 
innocency. 2. Where his answer should not be so fair and clear, there his 
lordship might be admitted to the extenuation of the charge ; and where the 
proofs were full, and undeniable, his lordship would ingenuously confess them, 
and put himself upon the mercy of the lords. 

Unto all which his majesty's answer was, he referred him to the lords of this 
house, and therefore his majesty willed his lordship to make report to their 
lordships. 

It was thereupon ordered, that the Lord Treasurer should signify unto his 
majesty, that the lords do thankfully acknowledge this his majesty's favour, and 
hold themselves highly bound unto his majesty for the same. 

Account given by Mr. Bushel. 
The following is the account given by Mr. Bushel. Having mentioned his 
lord's design of proposing several projects to the parliament for the public ser- 
vice, he then proceeds thus : " Before this could be accomplished to his own 
content, there arose such complaints against his lordship, and the then favourite 
at court, that for some days put the king to this quere, whether he should per- 
mit the favourite of his affection, or the oracle of his council, to sink in his 
service ; whereupon his lordship was sent for by the king, who, after some dis- 
course, gave him this positive advice, to submit himself to his house of peers, 
and that (upon his princely word) he would then restore him again, if they (in 
their honours) should not be sensible of his merits. Now, though my lord saw 
his approaching ruin, and told his majesty there was little hopes of mercy in a 
multitude, when his enemies were to give fire, if he did not plead for himself : 
yet such was his obedience to him from whom he had his being, that he 
resolved his majesty's will should be his only law, and so took leave of him 
with these words, Those that will strike at your chancellor (it is much to be 
feared), will strike at your crown, and wished, that as he was then the first, so 
he might be the last of sacrifices. Soon after, (according to his majesty's com- 
mands) he wrote a submissive letter to the house, and sent me to my Lord 
Windsor to know the result, which I was loth, at my return, to acquaint him 
with ; for alas ! his sovereign's favour was not in so high a measure, but he 
(like the phoenix) must be sacrificed in flames of his own raising, and so 
perished (like Icarus) in that his lofty design. The great revenue of his office 
being lost, and his titles of honour saved but by the bishops' votes, whereto he 
replied, that he was only bound to thank his clergy ; the thunder of which fatal 
sentence did much perplex my troubled thoughts, as well as others, to see that 
famous lord, who procured his majesty to call this parliament, must be the first 
subject of their revengeful wrath, and that so unparalleled a master should be 
thus brought upon the public stage, for the foolish miscarriage of his own ser- 
vants, whereof (with grief of heart) I confess myself to be one. Yet shortly 
after, the king dissolved the parliament, but never restored that matchless lord 
to his place, which made him then to wish, the many years he had spent in 
state policy and law study, had been solely devoted to true philosophy : for, 
(said he) the one, at the best, doth but comprehend man's frailty, in its greatest 
splendour ; but the other, the mysterious knowledge of all things created in the 
six days' work." (a) 



(a) This note is divided into two parts. First, Some Account of Bushel. 
Secondly, Observations upon the Account given by Bushel. 

I. Some Account, of Bushel. 

Mr. Bushel's Abridgment of Lord Chancellor Bacon's Philosophical Theory of 
Mineral Prosecutions. London : printed in the year 1659. 

It was the custom, in the time of Lord Bacon, for young men of property to 
attach themselves, as pages, to noblemen of eminence. It appears that Mr. 



NOTE G G G. 

Lord Bacon's Letter to the King. 

It may please your most excellent majestie, — I think myself infinitely 
bounden to your majestie, for vouchsafing me accesse to your royal person, and 
to touch the hemme of your garment. I see your majestie imitateth him that 
would not break the broken reede, nor quench the smoking flax ; and as your 

Bushel, who had large property at Eustone, near Oxford,* was, when he was 
fifteen years old, admitted into the family of Lord Bacon, and that he was 
under great obligation to him. Bushel's words are " his acceptance of me for 
his servant at fifteen years of age upon my own address, his clearing all my 
debts three several times with no smaller sum in the whole than 3000/. his 
preferring me in marriage to a rich inheritrix, and thereupon not only allowing 
me 400L per annum, but to balance the consent of her father in the match, 
promised upon his honour to make me the heir of his knowledge in mineral 
philosophy. 

Aubrey, in his anecdotes, when describing the walks at Gorhambury, says, 
" Here his lordship much meditated, his servant Mr. Bushel attending him with 
his pen and ink-horn to set down present notions." 

He was born about 1602, and was, therefore, in 1620, at the time of Lord 
Bacon's fall, about eighteen years old : and about twenty-six, in 1626, when 
Lord Bacon died. 

After the death of Lord Bacon Bushel retired to the Isle of Man, as he re- 
lates in his own work, and as is thus stated in Wood's History of the Isle of 
Man. 

" This island (the Isle of Man) is said to have been the retreat of two her- 
mits, one of whom, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, murdered a beautiful 
woman in a sudden fit of jealousy, and spent the remainder of his life in soli- 
tude, penance, and the severest mortifications ; the other, Thomas Bushel, in 
the reign of James, made it his abode for only a few years. A supposed letter 
of his still extant is to this effect. 

" ' The embrions of my mines proving abortive by the fall and death of Lord 
Chancellor Bacon, were the motives which persuaded my pensive retirement to 
a three years' solitude in the desolate isle, called the Calf of Man, where, in 
obedience to my dear lord's philosophical advice, I resolved to make a perfect 
experiment upon myself for the obtaining a long and healthy life, most neces- 
sary for such a repentance as my former debauchedness required, by a parsi- 
monious diet of herbs, oil, mustard, honey, with water sufficient, most like to 
that of our long lived fathers before the flood, as was conceived by that lord, 
which I most strictly observed, as if obliged by a religious vow, till Divine Pro- 
vidence called me to a more active life.' " 

As this tract was published in 1659, he was then near sixty years of age, as 
is explained in part of the tract, viz. 

In the address to the reader, in the beginning of this tract, he says : " But 
now seriously considering that the taper of my life burns in the socket (I having 
already numbered twelve lustres of years)," and as by a lustre I understand 
five years, I conclude therefore that Bushel was sixty years in 1659. 

Bushel always speaks of Lord Bacon in terms of the most grateful respect. 
With such expressions as the following his work abounds, " My old master, the 
Lord Chancellor Bacon, would often say, &c." Again, " Dedicated by my 
obliged gratitude to my Lord Bacon." 

He died at the age of eighty in 1684. 

He lay sometime at Captain Norton's, in the gate at Scotland Yard, where 
he died seven years since (now 1684) about eighty aetat. Buried in the little 
cloysters at Westminster Abbey, somebody put B. B. upon the stone (now, 
1787, all new paved). — Awbrey, 260. 

* See Plot's History of Oxfordshire. 



NOTE G G G. 

majestie imitateth Christ, so I hope assuredly my lords of the upper house will 
imitate you, and unto your majestie's grace and mercy, and next to my lords I 
recommend myself. It is not possible, nor it were not safe, for me to answer 
particulars till I have my charge ; which when I shall receive, I shall without 
figg leaves or disguise excuse what I can excuse, extenuate what I can ex- 

II. Observations upon the Account given by Bushel. 

The author of Bacon's Life, in the Biographia Britannica, says, " We have 
a long and formal detail of this matter, from one who might certainly be pre- 
sumed to know a great deal of it : viz. Mr. Bushel, who was his lordship's 
servant at that time, and who having ruined himself by engaging in the working 
of mines, upon pretence of following his lord's philosophical theory on that 
subject, endeavoured, while a prisoner in the Fleet, to apologize for his own 
conduct, by publishing a speech, which he asserts his master intended to have 
made to that parliament in which he was undone, upon this subject, and for 
procuring the establishment of a Royal Academy of Sciences, on the plan deli- 
vered in a work of his, entitled, his New Atlantis, which speech of his, though 
it may contain some thoughts of Lord Bacon's, is allowed by the learned Dr. 
Tenison to be in a great measure fictitious, and not only unworthy of that noble 
person, but such as it was impossible for him to have drawn. It is at the close of 
this speech, and in order to account for its not being spoken, that Mr. Bushel 
mentions his master's fall, which, he says, intervened before it could be spoken, 
and thereupon undertakes to give us all the circumstances of that extraordinary 
event from his own knowledge, which, if it could be depended upon, must be 
admitted to be a thing extremely worthy our notice : but 1 at present produce it 
with a view to gratify the inclination of the ingenious reader, of seeing whatever 
has been advanced on this subject on either side. In this light too, Mr. 
Bushel's account is a matter of some consequence, since it is the fullest and 
most circumstantial that has been hitherto given. 

'■ Bushel was a very strange man, and has told so many improbable stories 
of his master, and so many silly ones of himself, that what he says deserves no 
credit, farther than as it agrees with other evidence." — Tenison's Account of 
Lord Bacon's Works, p. 97. 

What authority there is for the assertion in the parts underlined, the reader 
may judge, by an examination of the observations in Archbishop Tenison's 
work, which is annexed. But that Archbishop Tenison did not doubt the cor- 
rectness of Bushel's statement, appears from the following passage in the Arch- 
bishop's Baconiana. 

" The great cause of his suffering, is to some, a secret. I leave them to 
find it out, by his words to King James, ' I wish (said he) that as I am the 
first, so I may be the last of sacrifices in your times.' And when from private 
appetite, it is resolved, that a creature shall be sacrificed ; it is easie to pick up 
sticks enough, from any thicket whither it hath straid, to make a fire to offer it 
with." 

But even if he had entertained doubts, we must judge by one of the funda- 
mental rules in all reasoning. Is it most probable that Bushel should, at the 
age of sixty years, have invented this anecdote, or that it is true 1 

The following is the passage in Archbishop Tenison's work, to which the 
editor of the Life, in the Biographia Britannica, refers. 

Archbishop Tenison, in his account of Lord Bacon's works, says : "There 
is annexed a certain speech touching the recovery of drowned mineral works, 
prepared, as Mr. Bushel saith, for that parliament under which he fell. His 
lordship, no doubt, had such a project ; and he might prepare a speech also, 
for the facilitating of it. But that this is a true copy of that speech, I dare not 
avouch. His lordship's speeches were wont to be digested into more method ; 
his periods were more round, his words more choice, his allusions more fre- 
quent, and managed with more decorum. And as no man had greater com- 
mand of words, for the illustration of matter, than his lordship ; so here he had 
matter which refused not to be clothed in the best words." 



NOTE GOG. 

tenuate, and ingenuously confess what I can neither clear nor extenuate. And 
if there be any thing which I mought conceive to be no offence, and yet is, I 
desire to be informed, that I may be twice penitent, once for my fault, and the 
second time for my error, and so submitting all that I am to your majestie's 
grace, I rest 20th April, 1621. 

A Speech touching the recovering of Drowned Mineral Works, prepared for the 
Parliament (as Mr. Bushel affirmed) by the Viscount of St. Albans, tlien 
Lord High Chancellor of England. 

My lords and gentlemen, — The king, my royal master, was lately (gra- 
ciously) pleased to move some discourse to me concerning Mr. Sutton's Hos- 
pital, and such like worthy foundations of memorable piety : which humbly 
seconded by myself, drew his majesty into a serious consideration of the mine- 
ral treasures of his own territories, and the practical discoveries of them by 
way of my philosophical theory : which he then so well resented, that, after- 
wards, upon a mature digestion of my whole design, he commanded me to let 
your lordships understand, how great an inclination he hath to further so hopeful 
a work, for the honour of his dominions, as the most probable means to relieve 
all the poor thereof without any other stock or benevolence, than that which 
Divine bounty should confer on their own industries and honest labours, in 
recovering all such drowned mineral works as have been, or shall be, therefore, 
deserted. 

And, my lords, all that is now desired of his majesty and your lordships, is 
no more than a gracious act of this present parliament to authorize them herein, 
adding a mercy to a munificence, which is, the persons of such strong and able 
petty-felons, who, in true penitence for their crimes, shall implore his majesty's 
mercy and permission to expiate their offences by their assiduous labours, in so 
innocent and hopeful a work. 

For, by this unchangeable way (my lords) have I proposed to erect the aca- 
demical fabric of this island's Salomon's House, modelled in my New Atlantis. 
And I can hope ('my lords) that my midnight studies to make our countries 
flourish and outvy European neighbours in mysterious and beneficent arts, have 
not so ingratefully affected the whole intellects, that you will delay or resist his 
majesty's desires, and my humble petition in this benevolent, yea, magnificent 
affair ; since your honourable posterities may be inriched thereby, and my ends 
are only, to make the world my heir, and the learned fathers of my Salomon's 
House, the successive and sworn trustees in the dispensation of this great ser- 
vice, for God's glory, my prince's magnificence, this parliament's honour, our 
countries general good, and the propagation of my own memory. 

And I may assure your lordships, that all my proposals in order to this great 
architype, seemed so rational and feasable to my royal sovereign, our Christian 
Salomon, that I, thereby, prevailed with his majesty to call this honourable 
parliament, to confirm and impower me in my own way of mining, by an act of 
the same, after his majesty's more weighty affairs were considered in your wis- 
doms ; both which he desires your lordships, and you gentlemen that are chosen 
as the patriots of your respective countries, to take speedy care of: which done, 
I shall not then doubt the happy issue of my undertakings in this design, 
whereby concealed treasures, which now seem utterly lost to mankind, shall be 
confined to so universal a piety, and brought into use by the industry of con- 
verted penitents, whose wretched carcases the impartial laws have, or shall 
dedicate, as untimely feasts, to the worms of the earth, in whose womb those 
deserted mineral /iches must ever lie buried as lost abortments, unless those be 
made the active midwives to deliver them. For, my lords, I humbly conceive 
them to be the fittest of all men to effect this great work, for the ends and causes 
which I have before expressed. 

All which, my lords, I humbly refer to your grave and solid judgments to 
conclude of, together with such other assistances to this frame, as your own 
oraculous wisdom shall intimate for the magnifying our Creator, in his inscru- 
table Providence, and admirable works of nature. 

vol. xv. 25 



NOTE G G G. 

Memoranda of what the Lord Chancellor intended to deliver to the King, April 
16, 1621, upon his first access to his Majesty after his troubles. 

That howsoever it goeth with me, I think myself infinitely bound to his 
majesty for admitting me to touch the hem of his garment ; and that, according 
to my faith, so be it unto me. That I ought also humbly to thank his majesty 
for that, in that excellent speech of his, which is printed, that speech of so 
great maturity, wherein the elements are so well mingled, by kindling affection, 
by washing away aspersion, by establishing of opinion, and yet giving way to 
opinion, I do find some passages which I do construe to my advantage. 

And lastly, that I have heard from my friends, that notwithstanding these 
waves of information, his majesty mentions my name with grace and favour. 

In the next place, I am to make an oblation of myself into his majesty's 
hands, that, as 1 wrote to him, I am as clay in his hands, his majesty may make 
a vessel of honour or dishonour of me, as I find favour in his eyes ; and that I 
submit myself wholly to his grace and mercy, and to be governed both in my 
cause and fortunes by his direction, knowing that his heart is inscrutable for 
good. Only I may express myself thus far, that my desire is, that the thread, 
or line, or my life, may be no longer than the thread, or line of my service : 
I mean, that I may be of use to your majesty in one kind or other. 

Now for any further speech, I would humbly pray his majesty, that whatso- 
ever the law of nature shall teach me to speak for my own preservation, your 
majesty will understand it to be in such sort, as I do nevertheless depend wholly 
upon your will and pleasure. And under this submission, if your majesty will 
graciously give me the hearing, I will open my heart unto you, both touching 
my fault and fortune. 

For the former of these, I shall deal ingenuously with your majesty, without 
seeking fig-leaves, or subterfuges. 

There be three degrees or cases, as I conceive, of gifts and rewards given to a 
judge. 

The first is of bargain, contract, or promise of reward, pendente lite. And this 
is properly called venatis sententia, or baratria, or corruptelcE munerum. And of 
this my heart tells me I am innocent; that I had no bribe or reward in my eye 
or thought when 1 pronounced any sentence or order. 

The second is a neglect in the judge to inform himself, whether the cause be 
fully at an end, or no, what time he receives the gift ; but takes it upon the credit 
of the party that all is done, or otherwise omits to inquire. 

And the third is, when it is received sine fraude, after the cause ended, 
which it seems by the opinion of the civilians is no offence. Look into the case 
of simony, &c. 

Draught of another paper to the same purpose. 

There be three degrees or cases of bribery, charged or supposed in a judge : 

The first, of bargain or contract, for reward to pervert justice. 

The second, where the judge conceives the cause to be at an end, by the 
information of the party, or otherwise, and useth not such diligence as he ought 
to inquire of it. And the third, when the cause is really ended, and it is sine 
fraude, without relation to any precedent promise. 

Now if I might see the particulars of my charge, I should deal plainly with 
your majesty, in whether of these degrees every particular case falls. But for 
the first of them, 1 take myself to be as innocent as any born upon St. Inno- 
cent's day in my heart. For the second, I doubt in some particulars I may be 
faulty. And for the last, I conceived it to be no fault ; but therein I desire to 
be better informed, that I may be twice penitent ; once for the fact, and again 
for the error. For I had rather be a briber, than a defender of bribes. 

I must likewise confess to your majesty, that at New-year's tides, and likewise 
at my first coming in (which was, as it were my wedding), I did not so pre- 
cisely, as perhaps 1 ought, examine whether those that presented me had causes 
before me yea or no. And this is simply all that I can say for the present con- 
cerning my charge, until I may receive it more particularly. And all this 



NOTL G G G. 

while, I do not fly to that, as to say that these things are vitia temporis, and net 
vitia hominis. 

For my fortune, summa svmmorum with me is, that I may not be made alto- 
gether unprofitable to do your majesty's service or honour. If your majesty 
continue me as I am, I hope 1 shall be a new man, and shall reform things out 
of feeling, more than another can do out of example. If I cast part of my 
burden, I shall be more strong and delivre to bear the rest. And, to tell your 
majesty what my thoughts run upon, I think of writing a stoiy of England, and 
of recompiling of your laws into a better digest. 

But to conclude, I most humbly pray your majesty's directions and advice. 
For as your majesty hath used to give me the attribute of care of your business, 
so I must now cast the care of myself upon God and you. 

17th April. 

The Lord Treasurer signified, that in the interim of this cessation, the Lord 
Chancellor was an humble suitor unto his majesty, that he might see his 
majesty and speak with him ; and although his majesty, in respect of the Lord 
Chancellor's person, and of the place he holds, might have given his lordship 
that favour, yet, for that his lordship is under the trial of this house his majesty 
would not on the sudden grant it. 

That, on Sunday last, the king calling all the lords of this house which were 
of his council before him, it pleased his majesty to shew their lordships what 
was desired by the Lord Chancellor, demanding their lordships' advice therein. 

The lords did not presume to advise his majesty; for that his majesty did 
suddenly propound such a course as all the world could not advise a better; 
which was, that his majesty would speak .with him privately. 

That yesterday, his majesty admitting the Lord Chancellor to his presence, 
his lordship desired that he might have a particular of those matters wherewith 
he is charged before the lords of this house ; for that it was not possible for 
him, who past so many orders and decrees in a year, to remember all things 
that fell out in them ; and that, this being granted, his lordship would desire 
two requests of his majesty. 1. That, where his answers should be fair and. 
clear to those things objected against him, his lordship might stand upon his 
innocency. 2. Where his answer should not be so fair and clear, there his 
lordship might be admitted to the extenuation of the charge ; and where the 
proofs were full, and undeniable, his lordship would ingenuously confess them, 
and put himself upon the mercy of the lords. 

Unto all which his majesty's answer was, he referred him to the lords of this 
house, and thereof his majesty willed his lordship to make report to their 
lordships. 

Jt was thereupon ordered, that the Lord Treasurer should signify unto his 
majesty, that the lords do thankfully acknowledge this his majesty's favour, and 
hold themselves highly bound unto his majesty for the same. 

Jurati in causa Domini Cancellarii : 

Sir Thomas Middleton, Knt. Thomas Knight. 

Edmond Phellipps. Thomas Hasellfoote. 

John Bawbury. Henry Ash ton. 

Thomas Foones. Raphe Moore. 

John Parkinson. Robert Bell. 

Gabriel Sheriff. William Spyke. 

Jo. Kellett Richard Peacock. 

William Compton. Christopher Barnes. 

Jo. Childe. 
Agreed the Lords' committees to prepare the examinations against the Lord 
Chancellor. 

Moved by the Lord Hunsdon, and ordered by the house, that the Lord Chief 
Justice do every morning, before the adjournment of the court, cause the names 
of the Lords' committees, appointed to meet that day in the afternoon, to be 
read by the clerk. 



NOTE GGG. 

Moved by the Earl of Arundel, that the three several committees, in causa 
Do7nini Cancellarii do make their report to-morrow morning of the examinations 
by them taken touching the Lord Chancellor ; and the clerk to produce the 
examinations in that cause taken in court, to the end their lordships may give the 
Lord Chancellor such particulars of his charge as their lordships shall judge fit. 

Dominus Capitalis Justiciarius, locum tenens Domini Cancellarii, declaravit 
prsesens Parliamentum continuandum esse usque in diem crastinum, videlicet, 
decimum nonum diem Aprilis, Dominis sic decernentibus. 

19th April. 

Die Jovis, videlicet, 19° die Aprilis, Domini tarn spirituales quam tempo- 
rales, quorum nomina subscribuntur, prassentes fuerunt : 
p. Carolus Princeps Walliae, etc. 
Archiepus. Cant. p. Jac. Ley, Miles et Bar. Ds. 

p. Archiepus. Eborum. Capit. Justic. Locum tenens, 

Epus. London. &c. 

The Earl of Arundel shewed, that (according to the order of the house, 27 
Martii) his lordship and the other lords joined in committee with him, have 
examined divers, in causa Domini Cancellarii. The which examination he deli- 
vered unto Mr. Baron Denham, who attended the lords of that committee. 

The Earl of Huntingdon declared, that his lordship, and the other lords joined 
in committee with him, had also examined divers touching the same cause ; the 
which examinations his lordship delivered unto Mr. Serjeant Crewe, who 
attended the lords of that committee. 

The Earl of Southampton declared, that his lordship, and the other lords 
joined in committee with him, had also taken divers examinations touching the 
same cause ; the which his lordship delivered to Mr. Attorney General. 

Mr. Baron Denham (coming to the clerk's table) stood and read the exami- 
nation taken by the Earl of Arundel, and the lords joined with his lordship, viz. 
the examinations of 

Sir George Hastings, knt. Bevis Thelwall. 

Sir Richard Yonge, knt. Sir William Bronker, knt. 

- Mr. Seijeant Crewe, in like manner, read the examinations taken by the Earl 
of Huntingdon, and the lords joined with his lordship, viz. 
The examination of Christopher Awbrey. 

A letter written by Christopher Awbrey to the Lord Chancellor, dated 22nd 
Nov. 1619. 

One letter written by him to the Lord Chancellor, dated the 21st of June, 
7620 ; and one other letter written by him to the Lord Chancellor, dated 19th 
July, 1620. 

The examinations of Ralph Merefill, Scrivener, and Tristram Woodward. 
Mr. Attorney General, in like manner, read first the brief of the examinations 
taken by the Earl of Southampton, and the lords joined with his lordship ; and 
then the examinations, viz. of 

Sir Rowland Egerton, knt. Samuel Jones. 

The Lady Dorothee Wharton. Sir Thomas Midleton, knt. 

Richard Keeling. John Bunbury. 

Anthony Gardiner. John Kellet. 

Sir Thomas Perient, knt. Gabriel Sheriff. 

Sir Henry Elmes, knt. Richard Scott. 

Sir Edward Fisher, knt. John Childe. 

James Kennedy. Henry Ashton. 

Peter Vanlor. Thomas Hasellwood. 

John Churchill. Ralph More. 

Sir Ralph Hansbv, knt. Thomas Knight. 

William Compton. Robert Bell. 

Robert Johnson, Alderman of William Spight. 

London. Richard Peacock. 



NOTE GGG. 

These letters and orders were also read, viz. 

One letter, dated the 14th March, 1618, written by the Lord Chancellor to 
the company of Vintners. 

An order made by the Lord Chancellor to relieve the English merchants of 
Vintners, dated 20th April. 

Order of reference by the Lord Chancellor to Sir Thomas Love, dated 9th 
May, 1619. 

Another letter of the Lord Chancellor to the Vintners, dated 9th June, 
1619. 

These examinations being read, the Earl of Southampton signified, that Sir 
Thomas Smith, knt. being to be examined in this business of the vintners, is 
sick of the gout. His lordship also declared, that his lordship, and the lords 
committees joined with him, have heard a public fame and report, how that the 
Lord Chancellor, having ordered matters in open court, did afterwards alter and 
reverse the same orders upon petitions ; that their lordships, in the time of this 
cessation, being desirous to know the truth thereof, sent for the registers of the 
Chancery (who then were in the country) ; and now, upon their return, they 
have, upon search, found out some such orders, altered and reversed upon 
petitions, and required a longer time to search for more ; and then the said 
registers will give their lordships more full satisfaction therein. The which was 
generally approved of by the house. 

The clerk read the examinations taken here in open court : 

In causa Domini Cancellarii, viz. of 
John Hunt. James Rolph. 

Edward Shereborne. Robert Barker. 

Sir George Renell. Thomas Mewtas. 

William Peacock. 

It was agreed, that, forasmuch as these examinations were taken by three 
several committees, and some were taken here in the house, and the examinations 
of the one spake of some of the same things taken by the other ; that the three 
committees do meet together (attended by the King's counsel) to make one 
brief of all these examinations. 

Agreed also, that the three committees, in causa Domini Cancellarii, do con- 
tinue to receive complaints, and take examinations in the same cause ; and that 
their lordships meet this afternoon, in the Little Committee Chamber, after the 
conference with the Commons. 

Dominus Capitalis Justiciarius, locum tenens Domini Cancellarii, declaravit 
praesens Parliamentum continuandum esse usque in diem Martis, videlicet, 24 m 
instantis Aprilis, Dominis sic decernentibus. 

April 20. 

To the King. 
It may please your most excellent majesty, — I think myself infinitely bounden 
to your majesty, for vouchsafing me access to your royal person, and to touch 
the hem of your garment. I see your majesty imitateth him that would not 
break the broken reed, nor quench the smoking flax ; and as your majesty 
imitateth Christ, so I hope assuredly my lords of the upper house will imitate 
you, and unto your majesty's grace and mercy, and next to my lords, I recom- 
mend myself. It is not possible, nor it were not safe, for me to answer parti- 
culars till I have my charge ; which when I shall receive, I shall, without fig 
leaves or disguise, excuse what I can excuse, extenuate what I can extenuate, 
and ingenuously confess what I can neither clear nor extenuate. And if there 
be any thing which I might conceive to be no offence, and yet is, I desire to be 
informed, that I may be twice penitent, once for my fault, and the second time 
for my error, and so submitting all that I am to your majesty's grace, I rest. 
April 20, 1621. 



NOTE GGG. 

24th April. 
Die Martis, videlicet, 24° die Aprilis, Domini tam Spirituales quam Tempo- 
rales, quorum nomina subscribuntur, przesentes fuerunt : 

Praesens Rex. p. Carolus Princeps Walliae, &c. 

p. Archiepus. Cant. p. Jac. Ley, Miles et Bar. Ds. 

p. Archiepus. Eborum. Capit. Justic. locum tenens, 

Epus. London. &c. 

The Lords sitting in their robes, and the Lord Chief Justice in the place of 
the Lord Chancellor, expecting his majesty's coming into the Parliament house, 
the Earl of Oxon (Lord Great Chamberlain of Eugland) and the Earl of Essex, 
who carried the sword, coming before, the King entered ; and his majesty being 
placed in his chair, under the cloth of estate, was pleased to make a gracious 
speech unto their lordships. 

As touching the complaints of grievances, his majesty commended the 
complaint of all public grievances, protesting that he will prefer no person 
whomsoever before the public good. And his majesty was pleased to put the 
lords in mind of their aucient orders of this house, in hearing the complaints in 
the examinations, and their manner to give judgment thereupon ; and advised 
them to entertain nothing (the time being precious), which was not material 
and weighty. 

And whereas many complaints are already made against courts of judicature, 
which are in examination, and are to be proceeded upon by the lords ; his 
majesty will add some, which he thinks fit to be also complained of, and 
redressed, viz. That no orders be made but in public court, and not in cham- 
bers ; that excessive fees be taken away ; that no bribery nor money be given 
for the hearing of any cause. These and many other things his majesty thought 
fit to be done this session. And his majesty added, that when he hath done 
this, and all that he can do for the good of his subjects, he confesseth he hath 
done but the duty whereunto he was born. 

Post meridiem. — The Prince his highness signified unto the Lords, that the 
Lord Chancellor had sent a submission unto their lordships, the which was 
presently read. It follows, in hcec verba : 

" To the Right Honourable the Lords of Parliament, in the Upper House 
assembled. 
" The humble Submission and Supplication of the Lord Chancellor. 

" It may please your lordships, I shall humbly crave at your lordships' hands 
a benign interpretation of that which I shall now write. For words that come 
from wasted spirits, and an oppressed mind, are more safe in being deposited in 
a noble construction, than in being circled with any reserved caution. 

" This being moved, and, as I hope, obtained, in the nature of a protection 
to all that I shall say, I shall now make into the rest of that wherewith I shall 
at this time trouble your lordships a very strange entrance. For, in the midst 
of a state of as great affliction as I think a mortal man can endure (honour being 
above life), I shall begin with the professing of gladness in some things. 

" The first is, that hereafter the greatness of a judge or magistrate shall be 
no sanctuary or protection of guiltiness, which (in few words) is the beginning 
of a golden world. The next, that, after this example, it is like that judges will 
fly from any thing that is in the likeness of corruption (though it were at a 
great distance) as from a serpent; which tendeth to the purging of the courts of 
justice, and the reducing them to their true honour and splendour. And in 
these two points, God is my witness, that, though it be my fortune to be the 
anvil upon which these good effects are beaten and wrought, I take no small 
comfort. 

" But, to pass from the motions of my heart, whereof God is only judge, to 
the merits of my cause, whereof your lordships are judges, under God and his 
lieutenant, I do understand there hath been heretofore expected from me some 
justification; and therefore I have chosen one only justification instead of all 



NOTE GG6, 

other, out of the justifications of Job. For, after the clear submission and con- 
fession which I shall now make unto your lordships, I hope I may say and 
justify with Job, in these words : I have not hid my sin as did Adam, nor con- 
cealed my faults in my bosom. This is the only justification which I will use. 
" It resteth, therefore, that without fig-leaves, I do ingenuously confess and 
acknowledge that, having understood the particulars of the charge, not formally 
from the house, but enough to inform my conscience and memory, I find matter 
sufficient and full, both to move me to desert the defence, and to move your 
lordships to condemn and censure me. Neither will I trouble your lordships 
by singling those particulars, which I think may fall off, 

" Quid te exemtajuvat spinis de pluribus una? 

Neither will I prompt your lordships to observe upon the proofs, where they 
come not home, or the scruples touching the credits of the witnesses ; neither 
will I represent unto your lordships how far a defence might, in divers things, 
extenuate the offence, in respect of the time or manner of the gift, or the like 
circumstances, but only leave these things to spring out of your own noble 
thoughts and observations of the evidence and examinations themselves, and 
charitably to wind about the particulars of the charge here and there, as God 
shall put into your mind, and so submit myself wholly to your piety and grace. 

" And now that I have spoken to your lordships as judges, I shall say a few 
words to you as peers and prelates, humbly commending my cause to your 
noble minds and magnanimous affections. 

" Your lordships are not simple judges, but parliamentary judges ; you have 
a further extent of arbitrary power than other courts ; and, if your lordships be 
not tied by the ordinary course of courts or precedents, in points of strictness 
and severity, much more in points of mercy and mitigation. 

" And yet, if any thing which I shall move might be contrary to your honour- 
able and worthy ends to introduce a reformation, I should not seek it. But 
herein I beseech your lordships to give me leave to tell you a story. Titus 
Manlius took his son's life for giving battle against the prohibition of his gene- 
ral ; not many years after, the like severity was pursued by Papirius Cursor, 
the dictator, against Quintus Maximus, who being upon the point to be sen- 
tenced, by the intercession of some principal persons of the senate, was spared ; 
whereupon Livy maketh this grave and gracious observation : Neque minus 
jirmata est disciplina militaris periculo Quinti Maximi, quam miserabili supplicio 
Titi ManLii. The discipline of war was no less established by the questioning 
of Quintus Maximus, than by the punishment of Titus Manlius : and the same 
reason is of the reformation of justice ; for the questioning of men of eminent 
place hath the same terror, though not the same rigour with the punishment. 

" But my case standeth not there. For my humble desire is, that his majesty 
would take the seal into his hands, which is a great downfall ; and may serve, 
I hope, in itself for an expiation of my faults. Therefore, if mercy and mitiga- 
tion be in your power, and do no ways cross your ends, why should I not hope 
of your lordships' favour and commiseration 1 

" Your lordships will be pleased to behold your chief pattern, the King our 
sovereign, a king of incomparable clemency, and whose heart is inscrutable for 
wisdom and goodness. Your lordships will remember that there sat not these 
hundred years before a prince in your house; and never such a prince, whose 
presence deserveth to be made memorable by records and acts mixed of mercy 
and justice: yourselves are either nobles (and compassion ever beateth in the 
veins of noble blood) or reverend prelates, who are tbe servants of Him that 
would not break the bruised reed, nor quench smoking flax. You all sit upon 
one high stage ; and therefore cannot but be more sensible of the changes of the 
world, and of the fall of any of high place. Neither will your lordships forget 
that there are vitia temporis as well as vitia hominis, and that the beginning of 
reformations hath the contrary power of the pool of Bethesda ; for that had 
strength to cure only him that was first cast in, and this hath commonly strength 
to hurt him only that is first cast in ; and for my part, I wish it may stay there, 
and go no further. 



NOTE GGG. 

" Lastly, I assure myself, your lordships have a noble feeling of me, as a 
member of your own body, and one that, in this very session, had some taste of 
your loving affections, which, I hope, was not a lightening before the death of 
them, but rather a spark of that grace, which now in the conclusion will more 
appear. 

*' And therefore my humble suit to your lordships is, that my penitent sub- 
mission may be my sentence, and the loss of the seal my'punishment ; and that 
your lordships will spare any further sentence, but recommend me to his 
majesty's grace and pardon for all that is past. God's holy spirit be amongst 
you. Your Lordships' humble servant and suppliant, 

April 22, 1621. " Fr. St. Alban, Cane." 

The which submission being read, first by the clerk, and afterwards repeated 
by the Lord Chief Justice ; the house was adjourned ad libiUim, to the end, the 
whole house being a committee, it might be the better debated, whether the said 
submission were a sufficient confession for the lords to ground their censure on. 

Their lordships being all agreed that the Lord Chancellor's submission gave 
not satisfaction to their lordships, for that his lordship's confession therein was 
not fully nor particularly set down, and for many other exceptions against the 
submission itself, the same in sort extenuating his confession, and his lordship 
seeming to prescribe the sentence to be given against him by the house ; their 
lordships resolved, that the Lord Chancellor should be charged particularly 
with the briberies and corruptions complained of against him, and that his 
lordship should make a particular answer thereunto ; but whether his lordship 
shall be brought to the bar, to hear the charge, or that, respect being had to his 
person (as yet having the King's great seal), the charge shall be sent unto his 
lordship in writing, it was much debated. 

And the Lord Chief Justice returning to the Lord Chancellor's place, his 
lordship put it to the question, viz. whether the charge shall be sent to the Lord 
Chancellor in writing, or the Lord Chancellor brought to the bar, to hear the 
same ; and agreed, by most voices, the charge to be sent to his lordship. 

Memorandum, That during the time the whole house was a committee, the 
collections of corruptions charged upon the Lord Chancellor, and the proofs 
thereof made by the three committees according to the order of the 19th April 
instant, was read by Mr. Attorney General. 

And the said collection (without the proofs) was now first read by Mr. 
Attorney, and then sent to the Lord Chancellor by Mr. Baron Denham, and 
him the said Attorney General, with this message from their lordships : That 
the Lord Chancellor's confession is not fully set down by his lordship in the 
said submission, for three causes : 1. His lordship confesseth not any particular 
bribe nor corruption. 2, Nor sheweth how his lordship heard of the charge 
thereof. 3. The confession, such as it is, is afterwards extenuated in the same 
submission ; and therefore the lords have sent him a particular of the charge, 
and do expect his answer to the same with all convenient expedition. 

Here followeth the said collection, viz, Corruptions charged upon the Lord 
Chancellor, with the proofs thereof. 

1. In the cause between Sir Rowland Egerton, knt. and Edward Egerton, 
the Lord Chancellor received five hundred pounds, on the part of Sir Rowland 
Egerton, before he decreed the same ; proved by the depositions of Sir Rowland 
Egerton : of John Brooke, who deposeth to the providing of the money, of pur- 
pose to be given to the Lord Chancellor, and that the same is delivered to 
Mr. Thelwall, to deliver to the Lord Chancellor : of Bevis Thelwall, who deli- 
vered the five hundred pounds to the Lord Chancellor. 

He received from Edward Egerton, in the said cause, four hundred pounds ; 
proved by the depositions of Sir Richard Yonge, knight, Sir George Hastings, 
knight, Rolphe Merefeild, and Tristram Woodward. 

2. In the cause between Hody and Hody, he received a dozen of buttons, of 
the value of fifty pounds, a fortnight after the cause was ended ; proved by the 
depositions of Sir Thomas Perient, knight, and John Churchill, who speaks of 
a greater value, by the report of Hody. 



NOTE G G G. 

3. In the cause between the Lady Wharton, and the coheirs of Sir Francis 
Willoughby, he received of the Lady Wharton three hundred and ten pounds ; 
proved by the depositions of the Lady Wharton, Richard Keeling, and Anthony 
Gardiner. 

4. In Sir Thomas Muncke's cause, he received from Sir Thomas, by the 
hands of Sir Henry Helmes, an hundred and ten pounds ; but this was three 
quarters of a year after the suit ; proved by the deposition of Sir Henry 
Helmes. 

5. In the cause between Sir John Trevor and Ascue, he received, on the part 
of Sir John Trevor, an hundred pounds, proved by the depositions of Richard 
Keeling. 

6. In the cause between Holman and Yong, he received of Yong an hundred 
pounds, after the decree made for him ; proved by the depositions of Richard 
Keeling. 

7. In the cause between Fisher and Wrenham, the Lord Chancellor, after 
the decree passed, received from Fisher a suit of hangings, worth an hundred 
and sixty pounds and better, which Fisher gave by the advice of Mr. Shute ; 
proved by the deposition of Sir Edward Fisher. 

8. In the cause between Kennedey and Vanlore, he received from Kennedey 
a rich cabinet, valued at eight hundred pounds ; proved by the deposition of 
James Kennedey. 

9. He borrowed of Vanlore a thousand pounds, upon his own bond, at one 
time, and the like sum at another time, upon his lordship's own bill, subscribed 
by Mr. Hunt, his man ; proved by the depositions of Peter Vanlore. 

10. He received of Richard Scott two hundred pounds after his cause was 
ended ; but, upon a precedent promise, all which was transacted by Mr. Shute ; 
proved by the deposition of Richard Scott. 

He received, in the same cause, on Sir John Lenthall's part, a hundred 
pounds : proved by the deposition of Edward Shereborne. 

11. He received of Mr. Wroth a hundred pounds, in respect of the cause be- 
tween him and Sir Arthur Mainewaring ; proved by the depositions of John 
Churchill and John Hunt. 

12. He received of Sir Ralph Hansby, having a cause depending before him, 
five hundred pounds ; proved b} r the depositions of Sir Ralph Hansby. 

13. William Counton, being to have an extent for a debt of twelve hundred 
pounds, the Lord Chancellor staid it, and wrote his letter, upon which part of 
the debt was paid presently, and part at a future day ; the Lord Chancellor 
hereupon sends to borrow five hundred pounds ; and, because Counton was to 
pay to one Huxley four hundred pounds, his lordship requires Huxley to forbear 
it for six months, and thereupon obtains the money from Counton. The money 
being unpaid, suit grows between Huxley and Counton in Chancery, where his 
lordship decrees Counton to pay Huxley the debt, with damages and costs, 
where it was in his own hands ; proved by the depositions of William Counton. 

14. In the cause between Sir William Bronker and Awbrey, the Lord Chan- 
cellor received from Awbrey an hundred pounds ; proved by the depositions of 
Christopher Awbrey, Sir George Hastings, and the letters to the Lord Chancellor 
from Awbrey. 

15. In the Lord Mountague's cause, he received from the Lord Mountague 
six or seven hundred pounds, and more was to be paid at the ending of the 
cause ; proved by the depositions of Bevis Thelwall. 

16. In the cause of Mr. Dunch, he received from Mr. Dunch two hundred 
pounds ; proved by the depositions of Bevis Thelwall. 

17. In the cause between Reynell and Peacock, the Lord Chancellor received 
from Reynell two hundred pounds, and a diamond ring worth five or six hundred 
pounds ; proved by the depositions of John Hunt and Sir George Reynell. 

He took of Peacock an hundred pounds, and borrowed a thousand pounds, 
without security, interest, or time of re-payment ; proved by the depositions of 
William Peacock and James Rolf. 

18. In the cause between Smithwick and Wych, he received from Smithwick 
vol. xv. 26 



NOTE G G G. 

two hundred pounds, which was repaid ; proved by the depositions of John 
Hunt. 

19. In the cause of Sir Henry Russwell, he received money from Russwell ; 
but it is not certain how much ; proved by the depositions of John Hunt. 

20. In the cause of Mr. Barker, the Lord Chancellor received from Barker 
seven hundred pounds ; proved by the depositions of Robert Barker and Edward 
Shereburne. 

21. There being a reference from his majesty to his lordship of a business 
between the Grocers and Apothecaries of London, he received of the Grocers 
two hundred pounds; proved by the depositions of Sir Thomas Midleton, 
Alderman Johnson, and John Bunbury. 

He received in the same cause of the Apothecaries, that stood with the 
Grocers, a taster of gold, worth between forty or fifty pounds, together with a 
present of ambergrease ; proved by the depositions of Sir Thomas Midleton and 
Samuel Jones. 

He received of the new company of Apothecaries, that stood against the 
Grocers, an hundred pounds ; proved by the depositions of John Kellet and 
Gabriel Sheriff. 

22. He took of the French merchants a thousand pounds, to constrain the 
Vintners of London to take from them fifteen hundred tuns of wine ; proved by 
the depositions of Robert Bell, William Spright, and Richard Peacock. To 
accomplish which, he used very indirect means, by colour of his office and 
authority, without bill or suit depending ; terrifying the vintners, by threats and 
imprisonments of their persons, to buy wines, whereof they had no need nor use, 
at higher rates than they were vendible ; proved by the depositions of John 
Child, Henry Ashton, Thomas Haselfote, Raphe Moore, Thomas Knight, and 
his own letters and orders. 

23. The Lord Chancellor hath given way to great exactions by his servants, 
both in respect of private seals, and likewise for sealing of injunctions, and 
otherwise ; proved by the depositions of Thomas Manwood and Richard Keeling. 

Dominus Capitalis Justiciarius, locum tenens Domini Cancel larii, declaravit 
praesens Parliamentum continuandum esse usque in diem crastinum, viz. 25 m 
diem instantis Aprilis, hora 2 a post meridiem, Dominis sic decernentibus. 

25th April. 

Die Mercurii, viz. 25° die Aprilis, post meridiem, Domini tam Spirituales 
quam Temporales, quorum nomina subscribuntur, praesentes fuerunt : 

p. Carolus, Princeps Walliae, &c. 

Mr. Baron Denham and Mr. Attorney General reported, that they did yester- 
day (according to the direction of the house), deliver unto the Lord Chancellor 
the charge of his lordship's corruption, &c. in writing, and required his lordship's 
answer, who said he would return the lords an answer. Memorandum, that 
the Lord Chief Justice received a letter from the Lord Chancellor, directed 
thus : " Unto Sir James Ley, Knight, Lord Chief Justice of the King's Bench, 
and supplying the place of the Lord Chancellor in parliament by commission." 
Of which letter the lords would take no notice, because it was directed to the 
Lord Chief Justice, and not to the house. 

And the Earl of Southampton moved, that the house be not concluded with 
this answer returned from the Lord Chancellor, viz. that he will return answer 
with speed, but to require and receive a direct answer from his own mouth. 
And it was much argued amongst the lords, in what manner this shall be done, 
whether here at the bar, or no ; for the freer discussing whereof, the house was 
adjourned ad libitum. 

Their lordships being resolved thereof, the Lord Chief Justice returned to the 
place of the Lord Chancellor; and then their lordships agreed to send a message 
unto the Lord Chancellor to this effect, by Mr. Baron Denham and Mr. Attorney 
General, viz. The lords have received a doubtful answer unto the message their 
lordships sent him yesterday ; and therefore they now send to him again, to 



NOTE GGG. 

know of his lordship, directly and presently, whether his lordship will make his 
confession, or stand upon his defence. 

Answer returned by the said messengers : The Lord Chancellor will make no 
manner of defence to the charge ; but nieaneth to acknowledge corruption, and 
to make a particular confession to every point, and after that an humble sub- 
mission. But humbly craves liberty, that where the charge is more full than 
he finds the truth of the fact, he may make declaration of the truth in such par- 
ticulars, the charge being brief, and containing not all circumstances. 

The lords sent the same messengers back again unto the Lord Chancellor, to 
let his lordship know, that their lordships had granted him time until Monday 
next, the thirtieth of this Apiil, ten in the morning, to send such confession and 
submission as his lordship intends to make. 

The Lord Treasurer made report of the conference yesterday with the Com- 
mons, touching Sir John Bennett ; the effect whereof was, that whereas the said 
Sir John Bennett, Knight, Judge of the Prerogative Court of Canterbury, being 
directed by the law both what to do, and what fees to take, he did both contrary 
to the law, exacting extreme and great fees, and much bribery ; some complaints 
against him were opened, with a request of the Commons, that they might send 
up more against him hereafter, if any came unto them. 

26th April. 

Answer returned this day, from the Lord Chancellor, by Mr. Baron Denham 
and Mr. Attorney General : That yesterday they signified unto the Lord Chan- 
cellor, that the lords have (at his lordship's request) granted him Monday next 
to send such confession and submission as he intends to make. L^nto which the 
Lord Chancellor answered, " He will do it." 

30th April. 

The Lord Chief Justice signified unto the lords, that he received a letter from 
the Lord Chancellor, the which was read, viz. 

" It may please your Lordships, — Whereas I received this morning your 
lordship's order for a writ of summons to parliament to the now Earl of Hertford, 
so it is, that upon Thursday night late, I received an absolute commandment, 
under his majesty's royal signature, to stay the writ until I receive his majesty's 
further pleasure therein ; with a clause, warranting me to give knowledge of this 
his majesty's commandment, if such a writ were required. 

" Your Lordship's humble servant, Fr. St. Alban, Cane. 
" York House, 26th April, 1621." 
Directed " To the Right Honourable the Lords Spiritual and 
Temporal, in the High Court of Parliament assembled." 

The Lord Chief Justice also signified, that he had received from the Lord 
Chancellor a paper roll, sealed up, which was delivered to the clerk ; and being 
opened, and found directed to their lordships, it was also read, which follows, 
in hcec verba : 

" To the Bight Honourable the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, in the High 
Court of Parliament assembled. 

" The Confession and humble Submission of me, the Lord Chancellor. 

" Upon advised consideration of the charge, descending into my own con- 
science, and calling my memory to account so far as I am able, I do plainly 
and ingenuously confess, that I am guilty of corruption, and do renounce all 
defence, and put myself upon the grace and mercy of your lordships. 

" The particulars I confess and declare to be as followeth : 

" 1. To the first article of the charge, viz. in the cause between Sir Rowland 
Egerton and Edward Egerton, the Lord Chancellor received five hundred 
pounds on the part of Sir Rowland Egerton, before he decreed the cause : I do 
confess and declare, that upon a reference from his majesty, of all suits and 
controversies between Sir Rowland Egerton and Mr. Edward Egerton, both 



NOTE GGG. 

parties submitted themselves to my award, by recognizance reciprocal in ten 
thousand marks a-piece. Thereupon, after divers hearings, I made my award, 
with advice and consent of my Lord Hobart. The award was perfected and 
published to the parties, which was in February ; then, some days after, the five 
hundred pounds mentioned in the charge was delivered unto me. Afterwards 
Mr. Edward Egerton fled off from the award ; then, in Midsummer term follow- 
ing, a suit was begun in Chancery by Sir Rowland, to have the award con- 
firmed ; and upon that suit was the decree made, which is mentioned in the 
article. 

" 2. To the second article of the charge, viz. in the same cause, he received 
from Edward Egerton four hundred pounds : I confess and declare, that, soon 
after my first coming to the seal (being a time when I was presented by many), 
the four hundred pounds mentioned in the charge was delivered unto me in a 
purse, and I now call to mind, from Mr. Edward Egerton ; but, as far as I can 
remember, it was expressed by them that brought it to be for favours past, and 
not in respect to favours to come, 

" 3. To the third article of the charge, viz. in the cause between Hodie and 
Hodye, he received a dozen of buttons, of the value of fifty pounds, about a 
fortnight after the cause was ended : I confess and declare, that, as it is laid in 
the charge, about a fortnight after the cause was ended (it being a suit of a great 
inheritance), there were gold buttons about the value of fifty pounds, as is men- 
tioned in the charge, presented unto me, as I remember, by Sir Thomas Perient 
and the party himself. 

" 4. To the fourth article of the charge, viz. in the cause between the Lady 
Wharton aud the co-heirs of Sir Francis Willoughby, he received of the Lady 
Wharton three hundred and ten pounds : I confess and declare, that I received 
of the Lady Wharton, at two several times (as I remember) in gold, two 
hundred pounds and an hundred pieces, and this was certainly pendente lite; 
but yet I have a vehement suspicion that there was some shuffling between 
Mr. Shute and the Register, in entering some orders, which afterwards I did 
distaste. 

" 5. To the fifth article of the charge, viz. in Sir Thomas Moncke's cause, he 
received from Sir Thomas Monk, by the hands of Sir Henry Helmes, an hundred 
and ten pounds ; but this was three quarters of a year after the suit was ended ; 
I confess it to be true, that I received an hundred pieces ; but it was long after 
the suit ended, as is contained in the charge. 

" 6. To the sixth article of the charge, viz. in the cause between Sir John 
Treavor and Ascue, he received, on the part of Sir John Treavor, an hundred 
pounds : I confess and declare, that I received at New Year's- tide an hundred 
pounds from Sir John Treavor ; and because it came as a New Year's gift, I 
neglected to inquire whether the cause was ended or depending ; but since I 
find, that though the cause was then dismissed to a trial at law, yet the equity is 
reserved, so as it was in that kind pendente lite. 

" 7. To the seventh article of the charge, viz. in the cause between Holman 
and Yonge, he received of Yonge an hundred pounds, after the decree made 
for him : I confess and declare, that, as I remember, a good while after the 
cause ended, I received an hundred pounds, either by Mr. Tobye Mathew, or 
from Yonge himself; but whereas I understood that there was some money 
given by Holman to my servant Hatcher, with that certainly I was never made 
privy. 

"8. To the eighth article of the charge, viz. in the cause between Fisher and 
Wrenham, the Lord Chancellor, after the decree passed, received from Fisher a 
suit of hangings, worth an hundred and sixty pounds and better, which Fisher 
gave by advice of Mr. Shute : I confess and declare, that some time after the 
decree passed, I being at that time upon remove to York House, I did receive a 
suit of hangings of the value, I think, mentioned in the charge, by Mr. Shute, as 
from Sir Edward Fisher, towards the furnishing of my house ; as some others 
that were no way suitors did present me the like about that time. 

"9. To the ninth article of the charge, viz. in the cause between Kenneday 
and Vanlore, he received a rich cabinet from Kenneday, prized at eight hundred 



NOTE G G G. 

pounds : I confess and declare, that such a cabinet was brought to my house, 
though nothing near half the value ; and that I said to him that brought it, that 
I came to view it, and not to receive it ; and gave commandment that it should 
be carried back, and was offended when I heard it was not ; and some year and 
an half after, as I remember, Sir John Kenneday having all that time refused to 
take it away, as 1 am told by my servants, I was petitioned by one Pinckney, 
that it might be delivered to him, for that he stood engaged for the money that 
Sir John Kenneday paid for it. And thereupon Sir John Kenneday wrote a 
letter to my servant Shereborne with his own hand, desiring that T would not do 
him that disgrace as to return that gift back, much less to put it into a wrong 
hand ; and so it remains yet ready to be returned to whom your lordships shall 
appoint. 

" 10. To the tenth article of the charge, viz. he borrowed of Vanlore a thou- 
sand pounds, upon his own bond, at one time, and the like sum at another time, 
upon his lordship's own bill, subscribed by Mr. Hunt, his man : I confess and 
declare that I borrowed the money in the article set down ; and that this is a 
true debt. And I remember well that I wrote a letter from Kew, above a 
twelvemonth since, to a friend about the King, wherein I desired that, whereas 
I owed Peter Vanlore two thousand pounds, his majesty would be pleased to 
grant me so much out of his fine set upon him in the Star Chamber. 

". 11. To the eleventh article of the charge, viz. he received of Richard Scott 
two hundred pounds, after his cause was decreed (but upon a precedent 
promise), all which was transacted by Mr. Shute : I confess and declare, that 
some fortnight after, as I remember that the decree passed, I received two 
hundred pounds, as from Mr. Scott, by Mr. Shute ; but, for any precedent 
promise or transaction by Mr. Shute, certain I am I knew of none. 

" 12. To the twelfth article of the charge, viz. he received in the same 
cause, on the part of Sir John Lentall, an hundred pounds : I confess and de- 
clare, that some months after, as I remember, that the decree passed, 1 received 
an hundred pounds by my servant Shereburne, as from Sir John Lentall, who 
was not the adverse party to Scott, but a third person, relieved by the same 
decree, in the suit of one Powre. 

•' 13. To the thirteenth article of the charge, viz. he received of Mr. Wroth 
an hundred pounds, in respect of the cause between him and Sir Arthur Mayne- 
waringe : I confess and declare, that this cause, being a cause for inheritance 
of good value, was ended by my arbitrament, and consent of parties ; and so a 
decree passed of course. And some month after the cause thus ended, the 
hundred pounds mentioned in the article was delivered to me by my servant 
Hunt. 

"14. To the fourteenth article of the charge, viz. he received of Sir Raphe 
Hansby, having a cause depending before him, five hundred pounds : I confess 
and declare, that there were two decrees, one, as I remember, for the inheri- 
tance, and the other for goods and chattels, but all upon one bill ; and some 
good time after the first decree, and before the second, the said five hundred 
pounds were delivered me by Mr. Tobye Mathew, so as I cannot deny but it 
was upon the matter, pendente lite. 

" 15. To the fifteenth article of the charge, viz. William Compton being to 
have an extent for a debt of one thousand and two hundred pounds, the Lord 
Chancellor stayed it, and wrote his letter, upon which part of the debt was paid 
presently, and part at a future day. The Lord Chancellor hereupon sends to 
borrow five hundred pounds ; and because Compton was to pay four hundred 
pounds to one Huxley, his lordship requires Huxley to forbear it six months, 
and thereupon obtains the money from Compton. The money being unpaid, 
suit grows between Huxley and Compton in Chancery, where his lordship 
decrees Compton to pay Huxley the debt, with damages and costs, when it was 
in his own hands : I declare, that in my conscience, the stay of the extent was 
just, being an extremity against a nobleman, by whom Compton could be no 
loser. The money was plainly borrowed of Compton upon bond with interest ; 
and the message to Huxley was only to intreat him to give Compton a longer 
day, and in no sort to make me debtor or responsible to Huxley ; and, therefore, 






KOTE G G G. 

though I were not ready to pay Compton his money, as I would have been glad 
to have done, save only one hundred pounds, which is paid ; I could not deny 
justice to Huxley, in as ample manner as if nothing had been between Compton 
and me. But, if Compton hath been damnified in my respect, I am to consider 
it to Compton. 

" 16. To the sixteenth article of the charge, viz. in the cause between Sir 
William Bruncker and Awbrey, the Lord Chancellor received from Awbrey an 
hundred pounds : I do confess and declare, that the money was given and 
received ; but the manner of it I leave to the witnesses. 

"17. To the seventeenth article of the charge, viz. in the Lord Mountague's 
cause, he received from the Lord Mountague six or seven hundred pounds ; 
and more was to be paid at the ending of the cause : I confess and declare, 
there was money given, and (as I remember) by Mr. Bevis Thelwall, to the 
sum mentioned in the article after the cause was decreed ; but I cannot say it 
was ended, for there have been many orders since, caused by Sir Frauncis 
Englefeild's contempts ; and I do remember that, when Thelwall brought the 
money, he said, that my lord would be further thankful if he could once get his 
quiet ; to which speech I gave little regard. 

" 18. To the eighteenth article of the charge, viz. in the cause of Mr. Dunch, 
he received of Mr. Dunch two hundred pounds : I confess and declare, that it 
was delivered by Mr. Thelwall to Hatcher my servant, for me, as I think, some 
time after the decree ; but I cannot precisely inform myself of the time. 

" 19. To the nineteenth article of the charge, viz. in the cause between 
Reynell and Peacock, he received from Reynell two hundred pounds, and a 
diamond ring worth five or six hundred pounds : I confess and declare, that, at 
my first coining to the seal, when I was at Whitehall, my servant Hunt delivered 
me two hundred pounds, from Sir George Reynell, my near ally, to be 
bestowed upon furniture of my house ; adding further, that he received divers 
former favours from me ; and this was, as I verily think, before any suit begun. 
The ring was received certainly pendente lite; and, though it were at New 
year's-tide, yet it was too great a value for a New year's gift, though, as I take 
it, nothing near the value mentioned in the article. 

" 20. To the twentieth article of the charge, viz. he took of Peacock an 
hundred pounds, and borrowed a thousand pounds, without interest, security, or 
time of payment : I confess and declare, that 1 received of Mr. Peacock an 
hundred pounds at Dorset House, at my first coming to the seal, as a present; 
at which time no suit was begun ; and that, the summer after, 1 sent my then 
servant Lister to Mr. Rolf, my good friend and neighbour, at St. Albans, to use 
his means with Mr. Peacock (who wa s accounted a monied man), for the 
borrowing of five hundred pounds ; and after, by my servant Hatcher, for 
borrowing of five hundred pounds more, which Mr. Rolf procured, and told me, 
at both times, that it should be without interest, script, or note ; and that I 
should take my own time for payment of it. 

'-' 21. To the one and twentieth article of the charge, viz. in the cause be- 
tween Smithwick and Wyche, he received from Smithwicke two hundred 
pounds, which was repaid : I confess and declare, that my servant Hunt did, 
upon his accompt, being my receiver of the fines of original writs, charge 
himself with two hundred pounds, formerly received of Smithwick, which after 
that I had understood the nature of it, I ordered him to repay it, and to defaulk 
it of his accornpt. 

" 22. To the two and twentieth article of the charge, viz. in the cause of Sir 
Henry Ruswell, he received money from Ruswell ; but it is not certain how 
much : I confess and declare, that I received money from my servant Hunt, as 
from Mr. Ruswell, in a purse ; and, whereas the sum in the article is indefinite, 
I confess it to be three or four hundred pounds ; and it was about some months 
after the cause was decreed, in which decree I was assisted by two of the 
judges. 

" 23. To the three and twentieth article of the charge ; viz. in the cause of 
Mr. Barker, the Lord Chancellor received from Barker seven hundred pounds : 



NOTE GG G. 

I confess and declare that the money mentioned in the article was received 
from Mr. Barker, some time after the decree passed. 

" 24. To the four and twentieth article, five and twentieth, and six and 
twentieth articles of the charge, viz. the four and twentieth, there being a refe- 
rence from his majesty to his lordship of a business between the Grocers and 
the Apothecaries, the Lord Chancellor received of the Grocers two hundred 
pounds. The five and twentieth article : in the same cause, he received of the 
Apothecaries that stood with the Grocers, a taster of gold, worth between forty 
and fifty pounds, and a present of ambergrease. And the six and twentieth 
article : he received of the New Company of the Apothecaries that stood against 
the Grocers, an hundred pounds : To these I confess and declare, that the 
several sums from the three parties were received ; and for that it was no 
judicial business, but a concord, or composition between the parties, and that as 
I thought all had received good, and they were all three common purses, I 
thought it the less matter to receive that which they voluntarily presented ; for 
if I had taken it in the nature of a corrupt bribe, I knew it could not be con- 
cealed, because it must needs be put to accompt to the three several companies. 

" 27. To the seven and twentieth article of the charge : viz. he took of the 
French merchants a thousand pounds, to constrain the vintners of London to 
take from them fifteen hundred tons of wine ; to accomplish which, he used very 
indirect means, by colour of his office and authority, without bill or suit depend- 
ing ; terrifying the vintners, by threats and imprisonments of their persons, to 
buy wines, whereof they had no need or use, at higher rates than they were 
vendible : I do confess and declare, that Sir Thomas Smith did deal with me 
in the behalf of the French company ; informing me, that the vintners, by 
combination, would not take off their wines at any reasonable prices. That it 
would destroy their trade, aud stay their voyage for that year ; and that it was a 
fair business, and concerned the state ; aud he doubted not but I should receive 
thanks from the King, and honour by it ; and that they would gratify me with a 
thousand pounds for my travel in it ; whereupon I treated between them, by 
way of persuasion, and (to prevent any compulsory suit) propounding such a 
price as the vintners might be gainers six pounds a ton, as it was then main- 
tained to me ; and after, the merchants petitioning to the King, and his majesty 
recommending the business unto me, as a business that concerned his customs 
and the navy, I dealt more earnestly and peremptorily in it ; and, as I think, 
restrained in the messengers' hands for a day or two some that were the more 
stiff; and afterwards the merchants presented me with a thousand pounds out 
of their common purse ; acknowledging themselves that I had kept them from a 
kind of ruin, and still maintaining to me that the vintners, if they were not 
insatiably minded, had a very competent gain. This is the merits of the cause, 
as it then appeared unto me. 

" 28. To the eight and twentieth article of the charge ; viz. the Lord Chan- 
cellor hath given way to great exactions by his servants, both in respect of 
private seals, and otherwise for sealing of injunctions : I confess, it was a great 
fault of neglect in me, that I looked no better to my servants. 

" This declaration I' have made to your lordships with a sincere mind ; 
humbly craving, that if there should be any mistaking, your lordships would 
impute it to want of memory, and not to any desire of mine to obscure truth, or 
palliate any thing : for I do again confess, that in the points charged upon me, 
although they should be taken as myself have declared them, there is a great 
deal of corruption and neglect, for which I am heartily and penitently sorry, and 
submit myself to the judgment, grace, and mercy of the court. 

" For extenuation, I will use none concerning the matters themselves ; only 
it may please your lordships, out of your nobleness, to cast your eyes of com- 
passion upon my person and estate. I was never noted for an avaricious man. 
And the apostle saith, that covetousness is the root of all evil. I hope also, 
that your lordships do the rather find me in the state of grace; for that, in all 
these particulars, there are few or none that are not almost two years old, 
whereas those that have an habit of corruption do commonly wax worse and 



NOTE GGG. 

worse ; so that it hath pleased God to prepare me, by precedent degrees of 
amendment, to my present penitency. And for my estate, it is so mean and 
poor, as my care is now chiefly to satisfy my debts. 

" And so, fearing I have troubled your lordships too long, I shall conclude 
with an humble suit unto you, that if your lordships proceed to sentence, your 
sentence may not be heavy to my ruin, but gracious, and mixed with mercy; 
and not only so, but that you would be noble intercessors for me to his majesty 
likewise, for his grace and favour. 

" Your Lordships' humble servant and suppliant, 

" Fr. St. Alban, Cane." 

This confession and submission being read, it was agreed that the lords here 
under named do go unto the Lord Chancellor, and shew him the said confession ; 
to tell him, that the lords do conceive it to be an ingenuous and full confession ; 
and to demand of him, whether it be his own hand that is subscribed to the 
same, and whether he will stand unto it or no, viz. 

L. Chamberlain. L. Bp. of Winton. L. Sheffeild. 

E. of Arundel. L. Bp. of Co. and Lich. L. North. 

E. of Southampton. L. YVentworth. L. Chandois. 

L. Bp. of Duresme. L. Cromwell. L. Hunsdon. 

Their lordships being returned, reported, that they shewed the said confession 
unto the Lord Chancellor, and told him, that your lordships do conceive the 
same to be ingenuous and full, and demanded of his lordship whether it were 
his hand that is subscribed thereunto ; who answered, '* My lords, it is my act, 
my hand, my heart. I beseech your lordships, be merciful unto a broken reed." 
Which being reported to the house, it was agreed by the house, to move his 
majesty to sequester the seal ; and that the lords intreated the Prince his high- 
ness, that he would be pleased to move the King's majesty therein ; whereunto 
his highness condescended ; and the same lords that went to take the acknow- 
ledgment of the Lord Chancellor's hand were appointed to attend the Prince to 
the King, with some other lords added. 

The Prince his highness reported unto the lords, that according to the request 
made unto him this morning by the house, himself, accompanied with the lords 
appointed to attend his highness, did move the King's majesty to sequester the 
great seal from the Lord Chancellor, whereunto his majesty most willingly 
yielded, and said he would have done it, if he had not been moved therein. 

2nd May. 

Die Mercurii, videlicet, 2° die Maii, post meridiem, Domini tarn spirituales 
quam temporales, quorum nomina subscribuntur, praesentes fuerunt. 

The prince his highness presented their lordships' suit to his majesty, that he 
would be pleased, as the case stood, to command the seal from the Lord Chan- 
cellor. That yesterday his lordship, the Lord Steward, the Lord Chamberlain, 
and the Earl of Arundel, at the King's command, went to the Lord Chancellor, 
and received from him the great seal, and delivered the same unto his majesty ; 
who, by commission, hath committed the same to the keeping of them, the 
Lord Treasurer, Lord Steward, Lord Chamberlain, and the Earl of Arundel. 

Agreed, to proceed to sentence the Lord Chancellor to-morrow morning ; 
wherefore the gentleman usher and the serjeant at arms, attendants on this 
house were commanded to go and summon him the Lord Chancellor to appear 
here in person to-morrow morning, by nine of the clock ; and the serjeant was 
commanded to take his mace with him, and to shew it unto his lordship at the 
said summons. 

See Blackburn, page 143, for the account of the attendance of the commis- 
sioners upon the Chancellor to receive the great seal. 



NOTE GGG, 



To the King's most excellent Majesty. 

It may please your Majesty, — It hath pleased God, for these three days past, 
to visit me with such extremity of headach, upon the hinder part of my head, 
fixed in one place, that I thought verily it had been some imposthumation ; and 
then the little physic that I have told me that either it must grow to a congela- 
tion, and so to a lethargy, or to break, and so to a mortal fever and sudden 
death ; which apprehension, and chiefly the anguish of the pain, made me 
unable to think of any business. But now that the pain itself is assuaged to be 
tolerable, I resume the care of my business, and therein prostrate myself again, 
by my letter, at your majesty's feet. 

Your majesty can bear me witness, that at my last so comfortable access, I 
did not so much as move your majesty, by your absolute power of pardon, or 
otherwise, to take my cause into your hands, and to interpose between the sen- 
tence of the house; and, according to my own desire, your majesty left it to the 
sentence of the house, and it was reported by my Lord Treasurer. 

But now, if not per omnipotentiam , as the divines speak, but per potestatem 
suaiiter disponentem, your majesty will graciously save me from a sentence, with 
the good liking of the house, and that cup may pass from me, it is the utmost 
of my desires. This I move with the more belief, because I assure myself that 
if it be reformation that is sought, the very taking away the seal, upon my 
general submission, will be as much in example, for this four hundred years, as 
any farther severities. 

The means of this I most humbly leave unto your majesty. But surely I 
conceive, that your majesty opening yourself in this kind to the lords counsellors, 
and a motion from the prince, after my submission, and my lord marquis using 
his interest with his friends in the house, may effect the sparing of a sentence, 
I making my humble suit to the house for that purpose, joined with the delivery 
up of the seal into your majesty's hands. This is my last suit that I shall 
make to your majesty in this business, prostrating myself at your mercy seat, 
after fifteen years service, wherein I have served your majesty in my poor 
endeavours, with an entire heart. And, as I presume to say unto your majesty, 
am still a virgin, for matters that concern your person or crown, and now only 
craving, that after eight steps of honour, I be not precipitated altogether. 

But because he that hath taken bribes is apt to give bribes, I will go further, 
and present your majesty with bribe; for if your majesty give me peace and 
leisure, and God give me life, I will present you with a good history of England 
and a better digest of your laws. And so concluding with my prayers, I rest 
clay in your majesty's hands. Fb. St. Alban, 

2nd May, 1621. 

[From the Tract.] 

Jovis, 3 Maii, 1621. — A message from the Lords, that they were ready to 
pronounce sentence against the late Lord Chancellor, if it please the house, 
with the Speaker, to come and demand judgment. 

So the house went up, and the Speaker demanded judgment. 

The Lord Chief Justice being Speaker in the higher house) said, that the 
Lords had duly considered of the complaints presented by the Commons against 
the Lord Verulam, Viscount St. Albans, late Lord Chancellor, and have found 
him guilty, as well by oath of witnesses, as by his own confession, of those and 
many other corruptions, for which they have sent for him to come and answer ; 
and upon his sincere protestation of sickness, we admitting his excuse of 
absence, have yet notwithstanding proceeded to his judgment, viz. That he be 
fined 40,00(K. to be imprisoned in the Tower during the King's pleasure, made 
incapable to bear office in the commonwealth, never to sit in parliament, nor to 
come within the verge, which is within twelve miles of the court. 



27 



NOTE GGG. 



The humble Submission and Supplication of the Lord Chancellor Bacon to 
the House of Lords. 

May it please your Lordships, — I shall humbly crave at your hands a benign 
interpretation of that which I shall now write ; for words that come from wasted 
spirits and oppressed minds are more safe in being deposited to a noble con- 
struction, than being circled with any reserved caution. 

This being moved (and, as I hope, obtained of your lordships) as a protec- 
tion to all that I shall say, I shall go on ; but with a very strange entrance, as 
may seem to your lordships, at first ; for, in the midst of a state of as great 
affliction as, I think, a mortal man can endure (honour being above life) ; I 
shall begin with the professing of gladness in some things. 

The first is, that hereafter the greatness of a judge or magistrate shall be no 
sanctuary or protection to him against guiltiness, which is the beginning of a 
golden work. 

The next, that after this example, it is like that judges will fly from any thing 
in the likeness of corruption (though it were at a great distance) as from a 
serpent ; which tends to the purging of the courts of justice, and reducing them 
to their true honour and splendour. And in these two points (God is my wit- 
ness) though it be my fortune to be the anvil upon which these two effects are 
broken and wrought, I take no small comfort. But to pass from the motions of 
my heart (whereof God is my judge) to the merits of my cause, whereof your 
lordships are judges, under God and his lieutenant ; I do understand there 
hath been heretofore expected from me some justification ; and therefore I have 
chosen one only justification, instead of all others, out of the justification of Job. 
For after the clear submission and confession which I shall now make unto 
your lordships, I hope I may say, and justify with Job, in these words, I have 
not hid my sin, as did Adam, nor concealed my faults in my bosom. This is 
the only justification which I will use. 

It resteth, therefore, that without fig-leaves, I do ingenuously confess and 
acknowledge that, having understood the particulars of the charge, not formally 
from the house, but enough to inform my conscience and memory, I find matter 
sufficient and full, both to move me to desert my defence, and to move your 
lordships to condemn and censure me. Neither will I trouble your lordships 
by singling these particulars, which I think might fall off. Quid te exempta 
juvat spinis de pluribus uva ? Neither will I prompt your lordships to observe 
upon the proofs, where they come not home, or the scruple touching the credits 
of the witnesses ; neither will I represent to your lordships how far a defence 
might, in divers things, extenuate the offence, in respect of the time and 
manner of the guilt, or the like circumstances ; but only leave these things 
to spring out of your more noble thoughts and observations of the evidence 
and examinations themselves, and charitably to wind about the particulars of 
the charge here and there, as God shall put into your mind, and so submit 
myself wholly to your piety and grace. 

And now I have spoken to your lordships as judges, I shall say a few words 
unto you as peers and prelates, humbly commending my cause to your noble 
minds and magnanimous affections. 

Your lordships are not simply judges, but parliamentary judges ; you have 
a further extent of arbitrary power than other courts ; and, if you be not tied 
by ordinary course of courts or precedents, in points of strictness and severity 
much less in points of mercy and mitigation : and yet, if any thing which I 
shall move might be contrary to your honourable and worthy end (the intro- 
ducing a reformation), I should not seek it. But herein I beseech your lord- 
ships to give me leave to tell you a story. 

Titus Manlius took his son's life for giving battle against the prohibition of 
his general : not many years after, the like severity was pursued by Papirius 
Cursor, the dictator, against Quintus Maximus, who being upon the point to 
be sentenced, was, by the intercession of some particular persons of the senate, 
spared ; whereupon Livy maketh this grave and gracious observation, Neque 



NOTE G G G. 

minus frrmata est discipline militaris periculo Quinti Maximi, quam miserabili 
supplicio Titi Manlii. The discipline of war was no less established by the 
questioning of Quintus Maxirnus, than by the punishment of Titus Manlius. 
And the same reason is in the reformation of justice ; for the questioning of 
men in eminent places hath the same terror, though not the same rigour with 
the punishment. But my cause stays not there ; for my humble desire is, that 
his majesty would take the seal into his hands, which is a great downfall, and 
may serve, I hope, in itself for an expiation of my faults. 

Therefore, if mercy and mitigation be in your lordships' power, and no way 
cross your ends, why should X not hope of your favour and commiseration 1 
Your lordships will be pleased to behold your chief pattern, the King our 
sovereign, a king of incomparable clemency, and whose heart is inscrutable for 
wisdom and goodness ; and your lordships will remember, there sate not these 
hundred years before a prince in your house, and never such a prince, whose 
presence deserveth to be made memorable by records and acts mixed of mercy 
and justice. Yourselves are either nobles (and compassion ever beateth in the 
veins of noble blood) or reverend prelates, who are the servants of him that 
would not break the bruised reed, nor quench the smoking flax. You all sit 
upon a high stage, and therefore cannot but be sensible of the change of 
human conditions, and of the fall of any from high place. 

Neither will your lordships forget that there are vitia temporis, as well as 
vitia hominis, and the beginning of reformation hath the contrary power to the 
pool of Bethesda; for that had strength to cure him only that was first cast in, 
and this hath strength to hurt him only that is first cast in ; and for my part, I 
wish it may stay there, and go no further. 

Lastly, I assure myself, your lordships have a noble feeling of me, as a 
member of your owu body, and one that, in this very session, had some taste of 
your loving affections, which, I hope, was not a lightning before the death of 
them, but rather a spark of that grace, which now in the conclusion will more 
appear : and therefore my humble suit to your lordships is, that my penitent 
submission may be my sentence, the loss of the seal my punishment, and that 
your lordships would recommend me to his majesty's grace and pardon for all 
that is past. God's holy spirit be among you. 



[From the Journals.] 

Die Jovis, videlicet, 3° die Mail, Domini tarn spirituals quam temporales, 
quorum nomina subscribuntur, praesentes fuerunt : 

p. Carolus Princeps Walliae, etc. 
p. Archiepus. Cant. p. Jac. Ley, Miles et Bar. Ds. 

p. Archiepus. Eborum. Capit. Justic. Locum tenens. 

The gentleman usher and the serjeant at arms attending this house reported, 
that (according to the appointment of their lordships yesterday) they repaired 
last night unto the Lord Chancellor, whom they found sick in bed ; and they 
signified unto him their lordships' pleasure ; and said they were sent to summon 
him to appear here before their lordships this morning, by nine of the clock ; 
who answered, that he is sick, and protested he feigned not this for an excuse ; 
for, if he had been well, he would willingly have come. 

The lords resolved to proceed notwithstanding against the Lord Chancellor ; 
and the King's Attorney having read the charge and confession, it was put to 
the question whether the Lord Chancellor be guilty of the matters wherewith he 
is charged or no ; and it was agreed by all, nemine dissentiente , that he was 
thereof guilty. 

And, to the end the lords might the more freely dispute and resolve what 
sentence to pass upon the Lord Chancellor for his said offences, the court was 
adjourned ad libitum. 

The house being resumed, and the Lord Chief Justice returned to his place, 
it was put to the question, whether the Lord Viscount St. Alban (Lord Chan- 



NOTE GGG. 

cellor) shall be suspended of all his titles of nobility during his life, or no ; and 
it was agreed per plures, that he should not be suspended thereof. 

The lords having agreed upon the sentence to be given against the Lord 
Chancellor, did send a message to the House of Commons, by Mr. Serjeant 
Crewe and Mr. Serjeant Hitcham, that the lords are ready to give judgment 
against the Lord Viscount St. Alban, Lord Chancellor, if they, with their 
Speaker, will come to demand it. 

In the mean time the lords put on their robes ; and answer being returned of 
this message, and the Commons come, the Speaker came to the bar, and 
making three low obeisances, said, " The knights, citizens, and burgesses of the 
Commons' house of parliament have made complaint unto your lordships of 
many exorbitant offences of bribery and corruption committed by the Lord 
Chancellor. We understand that your lordships are ready to give judgment 
upon him for the same. Wherefore I, their Speaker, in their name, do humbly 
demand and pray judgment against him the Lord Chancellor, as the nature of 
his offence and demerits do require." 

The Lord Chief Justice answered : " Mr. Speaker, upon the complaint of 
the Commons, against the Lord Viscount St. Alban, Lord Chancellor, this 
high court hath thereby, and by his own confession, found him guilty of the 
crimes and corruptions complained of by the Commons, and of sundry other 
crimes and corruptions of like nature. 

" And therefore this high court, having first summoned him to attend, and 
having received his excuse of not attending, by reason of infirmity and sickness, 
which he protested was not feigned, or else he would most willingly have 
attended, doth nevertheless think fit to proceed to judgment j and therefore this 
high court doth adjudge : 

*i 1. That the Lord Viscount St. Alban, Lord Chancellor of England, shall 
undergo fine and ransom of forty thousand pounds. 

" 2. That he shall be imprisoned in the Tower during the King's pleasure. 

" 3. That he shall for ever be incapable of any office, place, or employment 
in the state or commonwealth. 

" 4. That he shall never sit in parliament, nor come within the verge of the 
court. 

" This is the judgment and resolution of this high court." 

The Prince his highness was entreated by the house, that accompanied with 
divers of the lords of this house, he would be pleased to present this sentence 
given against the Lord Chancellor unto his majesty. His highness was pleased 
to yield unto this request. 



INDEX RAISONNEE TO THE NOTES. 



Letter of 


To what page in 


note. 


text it refers. 


A 


i 


B 


1 


C 


i 


D 


i 


E 


11 


G 


in 


H 


IV 


I 


IX 


K 


xi 


L 


XI 


M 


xiii 


N 


xvi 





XVI 



R 



s 


... xxii 


T 


... xxm 


V 


... xxm 


X 


... xxm 


Y 


XXXI 


Z 


... XXXV 


ZZ 


... xxvn 


2Z 


... xxvn 


A A 


... xxvii 


B B 


... xxvii 


CC 


... xxvn 


DD 


... xxviii 



EE 



F F 



Number of 
Subject of the note. the sheet of 

the note. 

York House, where Bacon was born... 1 
Sir Anthony Cooke, father of Bacon's 

mother 1 

Sir Nicholas Bacon, Bacon's father ... 1 

Lady Bacon, Anne, wife of Bacon 1 

Lady Jane Grey skilled in Greek 1 

Bacon's weak constitution 1 

Bacon's early developement of eminence 1 

Bacon's juvenile productions 1 

Universities 1 

Importance of knowledge and educa- 
tion, Bacon's admonitions 1 

Extract from Bacon's will as to two 

professorships in the universities 1 

New Atlantis 1 

Bacon sent to France at the age of six- 
teen 1 

Bacon's tract at sixteen on the state of 

Europe 2 

Bacon's tract on universal justice and 

others 2 

Bacon's love of contemplation 2 

Bacon's chambers at Gray's Inn Square 2 

References to Camden Styne Dugdale . 2 

Observations on Spencer 2 

Bacon's apology respecting Essex 2 

Letter to Burghley from Bacon 2 

Reversion of register's office 2 

Preamble to parliamentary proceedings 2 
Anthony Bacon member for W ailing- 
ford, and Francis for Middlesex 2 

Speech on law reform 2 

Bacon's suggestions on improvement of 
the law, with analysis of Justitia 

Universalis 2 and 3 

Extract from Dewe's journal of the 
House of Commons as to Bacon's 
speech, which displeased Elizabeth, 

upon the subsidies 3 

Letters from Bacon to the Lord Trea- 
surer and Lord Keeper touching his 

speech 3 

On Bacon's opinion of the doctrine of 

concealment and revelation 3 



INDEX RAISONNEE TO THE NOTES. 



Letter of 
note. 


To what page in 
text it refers. 


H H 


XXX ... 


I I 


XXX 


KK 


XXX ... 


L L 
M M 

N N 


XXX ... 
XXX ... 
XXX ... 





... XXXI ... 


P P 
QQ 
R R 

S S 
TT 


... xxxi ... 
... xxxi ... 
... xxxii ... 
... xxxii ... 
... xxxiii ... 


V V 


... xxxiii ... 


W W 
XX 


... xxxiv ... 
... xxxiv ... 


Y Y 


... xxxiv ... 


Z Z 
3 A 


... xxxiv ... 
... xxxv ... 



3B 



3 C 

3 D 
3E 
3F 
3G 



3 H 
3 I 



XXXV 

xxxv 
xxxv 
xxxv 



xxxvn ... 



3M 


xliii 


3 N 


... xliii 


30 


xliii 


3P 


... xliii 


3Q 


... xliii 


3R 


xliii 


3 S 


... xliv 



Subject of the note. 

Three letters to the Lord Keeper from 
Bacon respecting the solicitorship ... 

Letter from Essex to the Lord Keeper 
concerning Bacon 

Letter from the Lord Treasurer to Ba- 



Letter from Bacon to the Lord Keeper. 

Letter from Bacon to Lord Burleigh ... 

Bacon's discovery as to the Cecils and 
Lord Keeper 

Bacon's apology to Burleigh for his 
credulity respecting Salisbury 

Essex's letters to Bacon 

Bacon's letter to Queen 

Fulke Greville's to Bacon 

On regal character 

Letter saying he is not a mere man of 
letters 

Letter to Greville urging him to exert 
himself with the Queen 

Apology for Essex 

Letters upon his disappointment as soli- 
citor ... 

His inventions during his disappoint- 
ment 

Letter to Queen on his disappointments 

Letter to Burleigh thanking him for 
former obligations 

Baker's MSS. from Bedel Ingram's 
Book, as to Bacon's being admitted 
A.M 

Various editions of elements of common 
law, &c 

Specimens of his law maxims 

Preface to law maxims 

Nature of his law maxims 

Every man a debtor to his profession, 
&c. Different editions of his law 
maxims and MSS 

Letter from Essex to Bacon upon going 
to Ireland 

The various editions of the essays col- 
lected with much labour, dedications, 
letters to Prince of Wales, Sir John 
Constable, and Mr. Toby Mathews, 
to the Duke of Buckingham and Mar- 
quis Fiat 4 

Letter to Essex upon wishing to marry 
Lady Hatton, and Essex's answer... 

Unhappy marriage of whom to Lady 
Hatton 

Letter when arrested to Egerton 

History of alienation office 

Chidley's case 

Statute of uses 

Extracts from Dewe's Journal of the 



Number of 

the sheet of 

the note. 



5,6 



INDEX RA1S0NNEE TO THE NOTES. 

» i, r rp , . Number cf 

Letter of lo what page in gubject of tbe nQte> the gheet of 

note. text it refers. the nQte 

House of Commons upon various 

speeches of Bacon's 7 

3 T ... xlviii ... Bacon's apology respecting Essex — 

Alexander Hephestion and Craterus . 7 
3 V ... lv ... Essex's apology contained in a tract, 

penned by himself, 1598 ; extract 

from it 7 

3 W ... lviii -... Notice of Lady Rich's letter to Queen 

Elizabeth in favour of Essex 7 

3 X ... lviii ... Bacon's opening of the charge against 

Essex t 7 

3 Y ... lix ... Bacon's account of the distribution of 

parts to the counsel against Essex ... 7 

3 Z ... Ix ... Double nature of good in every thing — 

speech of Pompeius Magnus 7 

4 A ... Ixii ... Preferment a sacred trust — letter from 

Bacon to Mr. Massey 7 

4 B ... Ixii ... Custom explained of counsel pleading 
on both sides, extract from Harleian 
MSS. Edinburgh Review, Boswell, 
Lord Erskine, and Sir M. Hale 8 

4 C ... lxx ... Account of the trial of Essex in the 
Star Chamber from the Sydney pa- 
pers, from Camden and Morrison ... 8 

4 D ... Ixxviii ... Letter from Bacon offering his services 

to Essex, with his answer 9 

4E ... lxxix ... Letters referred to by Essex on his trial, 

framed for him by Bacon 9 

4 F ... xc ... Extract from the Harleian MSS. — des- 
cription of the arraignment of Essex 
and Southampton, 19th Feb. 1600 — 
Bacon's speeches 9 

4 G ... xciv ... Extract from Birch — the Queen's con- 
versation with the French ambassa- 
dor — his letter to his royal master, 
describing the Queen's last illness 
and despondency 10 

4 H ... xciv ... Letter to Sir George Carew respecting 
his work in Felicem Memoriam Eli- 
zabethan 10 

ZZ ... ccxxxiii ... Respecting the charge of bribery, various 

letters, examination of charge 10 

AAA ... cxxi ... Advancement of Learning — letters re- 
lating to and different editions of 15 

B B B ... cclxviii ... Novum Organum — letters and different 

editions 16 

C C C ... cxlix ... Wisdom of Ancients — letters and dif- 
ferent editions 17 

D D D ... clxxxix ... Extent of business in chancery 18 

TTT ... xcvii ... Rymer — Latin note 19 

EEE ... cxc ... Reform of the court — made lord keeper 

— patent — falsehoods in circulation . 19 
F F F .. cxci ... Letters to Buckingham, to Burleigh 
and Essex, from Bacon, speaking of 

his love of literary leisure 19 

H H H ... cii ... Lady Bacon, her birth, parentage, and 



INDEX RAISONNEE TO THE NOTES. 



setter of 
note. 


To what page in 
text it refers. 


J J J 


cvi 


QQQ 


... cxiii ... 


11 RR 


... cxxiv ... 


w w w 


... cxiii ... 


Y Y Y 


... cxiii ... 


ZZZ 




A A A A 




BBB B 


... ccxiii ... 


X XX X 
Y Y Y Y 




ZZZZ 


... cciii ... 


XOT 




X V 




XO U 


... ccxli ... 


X Y 


... ccxxiii ... 


G G G 


... cxxv ... 



Number of 
Subject of the note. the sheet of 

the note, 
tomb — Lord Bacon's will concerning 
her 19 

King's speech as to the union and reli- 
gion of these kingdoms, from jour- 
nals 19 

Value of medical knowledge, Plutarch 
— extract from Dr. Garnet on the 
same — Sir W. Temple ditto 19 

On Bacon's juvenile tracts without 
imagery or arrangement 19 

On unprofitable inquiries in English uni- 
versities — Shaftesbury, Hall, Milton, 
Seneca 19 

Ignorance of a man's own mind— Fos- 
ter's essays 20 

Censure of Bacon by Judge Foster, from 
a tract, Lond. 1766 20 

Sutton, the founder of the Charter 
House, alarmed at being made a peer 
—his frugal life 20 

Bishop Williams's speech on the first 
day of term on taking his seat 20 

Arraignment of Sir W. Raleigh 20 

Explanation of Coke's allusion to the 
ship of fools 20 

Roll of "New Yeares Guyftes" to 
Elizabeth 21 

Man swerves from truth if actuated by 
a stronger passion than the love of it 21 

Obstacles to the advancement of learn- 
ing and acquisition of knowledge .... 21 

Error as to the opinion of punishing lu- 
natics 21 

Stopping the patent as to separate col- 



21 



Proceedings against Bacon, from a tract 
entitled Collection of Proceedings, 
&c. — an account of Bushel— Bacon's 
letter to the King, &c 22 



INDEX TO THE NOTES. 



Abolition of presents to judges in 
France, note Z Z. 

Advancement of Learning, to whom 
presented, note AAA; different 
editions of, note A A A. 

Advocate, duty of, note 4 B, text 62. 

Agnus, only word wolf makes of al- 
phabet, note X O T. 

Alfred, his division of time, note X O T. 

Amias Paulet, text 9. 

Ancients, Wisdom of, edition of, note 

ccc. 

Anne Bacon, wife of Harbottle Grim- 
stone, account of, text 6. 
Aphorisms, the favorite style of Bacon, 

note 3K, text 37. 
Apology by Bacon, concerning Essex, 

note 3 Y, text 49. 
Apology of Essex, written by himself, 

note 3 V, text 45. 
Arrest of Bacon for debt, note 3 O, 

text 43. 
Ascham, note E, text 2. 
Atheism, arising from half-knowledge, 

note 3 L, text 41. 
Athens, reform of law in, note B B, 

text 27. 
Atlantis, New, note N, text 16. 
Attempts to modernize essays, note 3 I, 

text 36. 
Aubrey, his petition against Bacon, 

note G G G. 
Authors, their observations on Novum 

Organum, note B B B. 
Autographs of Bacon in the books at 

Grays Inn, note T, text 23. 

Bacon, his desire to quit the law, note 
Z, text 26; his judgment not in- 
fluenced by presents, note Z Z ; 
liable to fainting, note G, text 3 ; 
his sensibility, note G, text 3 ; his 
delicate health, note G, text 3 ; 
Essex's care of him, note 3 H, teit 
26 ; goes to France, when six- 
teen, note O ; letters from, to the 
Lord Keeper, April, 1594, requiring 
his good offices as to the solicitor- 
ship, note HH, text 30; never re- 
warded by Elizabeth, note ZZ, text 



27 ; his love of contemplation, note 
F F F ; his marriage, note H H H ; 
proceedings in parliament against, 
note G G G ; his pension, note 
TTT. 
Bacon's letter to Burleigh to rescue 
him from the law, note Z, text 26 ; 
letter to Burleigh respecting the 
Queen's intentions and liberality, 
note 3 A, text 35 ; extraordinary 
powers when a child, note H, text 3 ; 
love of aphorisms, note 3 K, text 
37 ; early writings without imagery, 
note 3 K, text 37 ; essay on atheism, 
note 3 L, text 41 ; letter to Essex 
respecting his intended marriage, 
note 3 M, text 42 ; chambers in 
Gray's Inn, note T; love of con- 
templation, notes S, T, text 22 ; 
apology respecting Essex, extract 
from, note Y, text 26 ; powers, active 
or contemplative, note Z, text 26 ; 
letter to the King on his love of re- 
tirement, April, 1616, note S; apart- 
ments, No. 1, Gray's Inn Square, 
description of, note'V t text 23 ; letter 
to Lord Burgh] ey desiring his good 
offices and speaking of his capa- 
bility either for contemplation or 
action, note Z, text 26 ; speech upon 
the subsidies, in Queen Elizabeth's 
reign, note D D, text 28 ; letter to 
the Lord Treasurer as to his speech 
on the subsidies which offended the 
Queen, and to Puckering thereon, 
note E E, text 28 ; letter to Anthony 
Bacon on the solicitor's place, 25th 
June, 1594, note P P, text 31 ; let- 
ter to the Queen upon the solicitor's 
place, and upon her displeasure, 
note Q Q, text 32 ; letter complain- 
ing to the Lord Keeper Puckering 
of his treatment, August 19, 1595, 
note L L, text 30 ; letter to Bur- 
leigh desiring his good offices, note 
M M, text 30 ; suspicion of the Ce- 
cils, extract from the Biographia, 
charge against Cecil that he was 
bribed, note N N, text 30 ; acknow- 
ledgment that he was wrong in ac- 



INDEX TO THE NOTES. 



cusing Cecil of bribery, note O O, 
text 31 ; letter to Burleigh noticing 
his father's youth when first em- 
ployed by the Queen, note T T, text 
33 ; letter to Foulke Greville com- 
plaining of the Queen, note V V, 
text 33 ; letter to the Earl of Devon- 
shire respecting Essex's gift of an 
estate, note W W, text 34 ; letter to 
Essex declaring his intention to re- 
tire after his disappointment, March 
30, 1594, note X X, text 34 ; inven- 
tion of machine to show the motion 
of the planets, note Y Y, text 34 ; 
intention to travel after his disap- 
pointment, letter to Cecil, note X X, 
text 34; patent for Lord Keeper, 
note EEE; appointment as Lord 
Keeper, falsehoods respecting, note 
EEE; opinion of his own unfitness 
for business, note S. 

Bacon, Lady, buried in Bedfordshire, 
note H H H ; maiden name of, 
Barnham, note H H H. 

Bacon, Anthony, member for Walling- 
ford, note A A, text 27 ; member for 
Middlesex, note A H, text 27 ; in- 
troduced by Francis to Essex, note Y. 

Bacon's mother, note D, text 1. 

Bedel Ingram's account of grace 
granted at Cambridge to Bacon, 
note 3 B, text 35. 

Ben Jonson, observations on Bacon's 
early works without imagery, note 

XV XV XV. 

Bodley, letter to, from Bacon, on love 
of retirement, note S, text 22. 

Bodley, Sir Thomas, presented with 
Advancement of Learning, note 
AAA. 

Bribery. — See Judges, presents to; 
charge of, Des Cartes' observations, 
note Z Z ; charge of, against Wil- 
liams, note Z Z ; charges of, fully 
detailed, note G G G ; interview be- 
tween Bacon and King, note G G G ; 
charges of, note Z Z ; refused by 
Hale, note Z Z. 

Brackley. — See Ellesmere. 

Brograve and Brauthwayt preferred 
to Bacon, by Lord Keeper Pucker- 
ing, note K K, text 30. 

Buckhurst presented with Advance- 
ment of Learning, note AAA. 

Buckingham, letter to, by Bacon, on 
being accused, note Z Z. 

Burghley's, Lord, objection to pay 
Spenser for his poem, note X, text 
25 ; letter from, to Bacon, on the 
solicitorship, note K K, text 30. 



Bushel, account of, note G G G ; his 
account of Bacon's not resisting 
charge of bribery, note G G G. 

Bushel's Abridgement, page 1, de- 
scribing a glass invented by Bacon, 
note Y Y, text 34. 

Butler, Charles, early riser, note 

xov. 

Cambridge University grace passed, 

1504, note 3 B, text 35 ; their letter 

upon receipt of Novum Organum, 

note B B B. 
Camden's account of Essex's trial, 

note 4 C, text 70. 
Cards, patent for, by Raleigh, note 

XXX X. 
Cartes. — See Des Cartes. 
Chambers in Gray's Inn, Bacon's, 

note T. 
Chancellor, L'Hopital, his recreations, 

note XOV. 
Chancellor, Lord, presented with Ad- 
vancement of Learning, note AAA. 
Chancery, remedies for defects of, 

note D D D. 
Charge of bribery, note G G G. 
Charges of bribery against Bacon, note 

ZZ. 
Charter House, note X O Y ; founder 

of, his noble conduct, note A AAA. 
Cicero, his intellectual recreations, 

note X O T. 
Coke, Sir Edward, his remarks on 

Novum Organum, note B B B. 
Collegiate education of statesmen neg- 
lected in England, note C C C. 
Common Law, elements of, different 

editions by Bacon, note 3 C, text 35. 
Concealment and revelation of opinion, 

note F F, text 28. 
Contemplation, Bacon's love of, note 

T, text 22 ; note F F F. 
Contemplative life, note B, text 1. 
Cooke, Sir Anthony, note B, text 1. 
Copies of Novum Organum, to whom 

presented, note B B B. 
Curiosity, Idle, notes XOV, Q Q Q, 

WWW. 

D'Aguesseau, note D D D. 
Daughters of Sir A. Cooke, note B. 
Death of Lord Ellesmere, note EEE. 
Defects of chancery, remedies for, 

note D D D. 
Demetrius, note XOV. 
Des Cartes, his observations upon 

charge of bribery, note Z Z. 
D'Ewes, Sir Simon, note X X X X ; 

Journal, extract from, note 3 S, text 



INDEX TO THE NOTES. 



44; extract from, relating to the 
subsidies, note DD, text 28. 

Digby, letter to, note Z Z. 

Double nature of good, note 3 Z, text 
60. 

Dulwich College, note X O Y. 

Editions of Bacon's Essays, full ac- 
count of, note 3 E, text 37 ; dif- 
ferent, of Advancement of Learn- 
ing, note AAA; of Novum Or- 
ganum, note B B B ; of Wisdom of 
Ancients, note CCC. 

Education of statesmen neglected in 
England, note CCC. 

Egerton, Sir Thomas, letter to, note 
3 O, text 43 ; his petition against 
Bacon, note G G G. 

Eldon, Lord, account of him, note 
DDD. 

Elements of Common Law by Bacon, 
different editions of, note 3 C, text 
35. 

Elizabeth, her affliction at the death of 
Essex, note 4 G, text 94 ; eulogium 
upon, by Bacon, with notices by 
Tenisou and Rawley, note 4 H, 
text 94 ; her neglect of Bacon, note 
Z Z, text 27. 

Ellesmere, Lord, resigns great seals, 
note E E E. 

England, judges in, presents to, note 
ZZ. 

Epices abolished in France by L'Ho- 
pital, note Z Z ; nature of, note Z Z ; 
origin of, note Z Z. 

Erskine on duty of advocate, note 4 B, 
text 62. 

Essays of Bacon, various editions of, 
note 3 I, text 37 ; in French, note 
3 I, text 36 ; translations of, note 
3 I, text 37 ; relating to administra- 
tion of justice, note CCC; post- 
humous, note 3 I, text 37 ; observa- 
tions on, note 3 I, text 37 ; obser- 
vations on, by Tenison, note 3 I, 
text 37 ; in Italian, note 3 I, text 
36 ; modernized, note 3 I, text 26 ; 
Forster's, note G G. 

Essex, Bacon's friendship for, note Y, 
text 26 ; his care of Bacon, note 3 H, 
text 26 ; his apology by himself, 
note 3 V, text 45; charge against, 
in the house of lords, note 3 X, text 
48 ; Bacon's apology respecting, 
extract from, note Y, text 26; his 
letter to Bacon after his confine- 
ment, note 4 D, text 78 ; his letters 
to Bacon respecting the solicitor- 
ship, September, 1593, and March, 



1594, note P P, text 31 ; letters from, 
to the Lord Keeper on Bacon's be- 
half, note 1 1, text 30. 

Eulogium on Queen Elizabeth, letter 
thereon, note 4 H, text 94. 

Europe, state of, note Z, text 17 ; first 
treatise of Bacon's, ibid. 

Evelyn's memoirs, note X O V. 

Expense of Chancery, note DDD. 

Fainting, Bacon liable to, note G, 
text 3. 

Falsehoods respecting Bacon's appoint- 
ment as Lord Keeper, note EEE. 

Family of Sir Nicholas, note C. 

Father Fulgentio, note CCC. 

Field, Doctor, note G G G. 

Fish-ponds, Bacon's, note C. 

Fools, ship of, note Y Y Y Y. 

Forster, Judge, his observations on 
Bacon, note Z ZZ. 

Foster's essays, note Y Y Y. 

Foulke Greville, letter from, to Bacon, 
upon the solicitor's place, note R R, 
text 32. 

Founder of Charter House, his noble 
conduct, note A A A A . 

France, Bacon goes to, when sixteen, 
note O ; abolition of presents to 
judges in, note Z Z ; custom of 
epices, note Z Z ; sale of offices abo- 
lished in, note Z Z. 

French ambassador's account of Queen 
Elizabeth's affliction and decline, 
note 4G, text 94. 

French essays, note X, text 36. 

Friendship, note upon, note 3S, text 48. 

Fulgentio, father, note CCC. 

Fuller, his praise of Bacon, note Z Z. 

Furniture belonging to Sir Nicholas, 
how preserved, note C. 

Garnet, note Z Z Z. 

General knowledge, importance of, 
note L, text 11. 

Giddy Hall, note B, text 1. 

Glass tube to discover insensible per- 
spiration invented by Lord Stanhope, 
note Y Y. 

Grammarian labouring on words, note 

w w w. 

Gray's Inn, Bacon's apartments there, 
and autographs, and trees planted 
by him, note T, text 23. 

Gray's Inn Gardens, note T. 

Great seal of Sir Nicholas, how pre- 
served, note G. 

Grey, Lady Jane, note E, text 2. 

Grimstone, Sir Harboltle, account of, 
note C. 



INDEX TO THE NOTES. 



Hale, Sir Matthew, on the duty of an 
advocate, note 4 B, text 62 ; refused 
presents, note Z Z, 

Hale, note D D D. 

Hale, note Z Z. 

Hall, Bishop, note WWW. 

Hastings, Sir George, note GGG. 

Hatfield, lunatic, note X O U. 

Hatton, Lady, legend concerning, note 
3 O, text 42. 

Health of Bacon delicate, note G. 
text 3. 

Heme, his observations on Bacon's 
conduct respecting the Charter 
House, note XOY. 

Historical collections, by Jonson, ex- 
tract from, note 2 Z, text 27. 

Homer, extract from, as to presents, 
note Z Z. 

Homer's presents to judges, note Z Z. 

Hdpital, see L'Hopital. 

Hopital abolishes epices, note Z Z. 

Hungerford, note A. 

Hunter, John, his ignorance of exist- 
ing knowledge, note XOY. 

Idle curiosity, notes Z Z Z, X O V, 
WWW. 

Ignorance of existing inventions, note 

XOV. 
Imagery discarded from Bacon's early 

writings, note 3 K, text 37 ; note 

RRR. 
Importance of maternal education, 

note D. 
Improvement of law, Bacon's different 

suggestions, note C C, text 27. 
Inscriptions at Gorhambury, note C. 
Interview between Bacon and the 

King, pending bribery proceedings, 

note GGG. 
Intellectual recreations of Carew, note 

XOV. 
Inventions, existing ignorance of, note 

xov. 

Italian, essays in, note 3 1, text 36. 

Jenkins, Mr., note GGG. 

Jeffries, Judge, his sensual recreations, 
note XOV. 

Johnson on duty of advocate, note 4 B, 
text 62. 

Jonson, Ben, his praise of Bacon, note 
ZZ. 

Journals of the House, extracts from, 
note 3 S, text 44. 

Judge Forster, his observation on Ba- 
con, note Z Z Z. 

Judges in England, presents to, in all 
times, note 2 Z ; presents to, in Ho- 



mer, note Z Z ; presents to, in Rome, 

note ZZ. 
Judgment of Bacon not influenced by 

presents, note 2 Z. 
Judicial virtues of Hale, note 2 Z. 
Justice, administration, essays relating 

to, note CCC. 
Justice, universal, note R, text 22 ; 

description and analysis of, note 

CCC. 
Justitia universalis, description and 

analysis of, note C C. 

Ki ng, his letter upon NovumOrganum , 
note B B B ; his interview with Ba- 
con, pending bribery proceedings, 
note GGG; his speech, note III. 

Kings, presents to, note Z Z Z Z. 

Knowledge, general importance of, 
note L, text 11 ; of mind, import- 
ance of, note WWW; destroys 
atheism, note 3 L, text 41 ; obstacles 
to, note XOV. 

Lady Bacon, see Bacon's marriage, 
note H H H ; epitaph on, note 
HHH. 

Lansdowne MSS. notice of Bacon's 
argument in Chudley's case, note 
3 Q, text 43. 

Latin, essays in, note 3 L, text 36. 

Law, gradual reform of, woieBB, text 
27. 

Law offices, sale of, abolished in 
France, note 2 Z. 

Law works, 1. elements of common 
law, maxims of law, use of law, 
statute of uses, office of constables, 
office for alienations, note R. 

Lawyers oppose reform of law, note 
CCC. 

Learning, note AAA. 

Learning, advancement of, note AAA. 

Lectures left by Bacon in Will, note 
M, text 13. 

Letter to Essex, from Bacon, offering 
his services when enlarged, note 4 D, 
text 78 ; to Cecil, complaining of 
being arrested for debt, note 3 O, 
text 43 ; to Sir J. Egerton, com- 
plaining of being arrested for debt, 
note 3 O, text 43 ; to the King, from 
Bacon, on his love of retirement, 
April, 1616, note S ; to Bodley, 
from Bacon, stating his own unfit- 
ness for business, note S ; from Bacon 
to Essex, on his love of retirement, 
note S, text 22 ; to Lord Treasurer, 
on,love of retirement, note S, text 22 ; 
to Lord Burghley, from Bacon, 



INDEX TO THE NOTES. 



masque at Gray's Inn, note T ; to 
Bacon, from Lord Burghley, in 
which he states the preference given 
to Brograve and Brauthwayt by the 
Lord Keeper Puckering, note K K, 
text 30 ; from Foulke Greville to 
Bacon, as to the solicitor's place, 
note R R, text 32 ; from Bacon to 
the Earl of Devonshire, respecting 
Essex's gift of an estate, note W W, 
text 34 ; from Bacon to the Queen, 
20 July, 1504, after her refusal of 
solicitor's place, note Z Z, text 35 ; 
of Sutton, refusing peerage, note 
A A A A ; to Mathew, respecting 
Novum Organum, note B B B ; of 
complaint to Buckingham, from 
Williams, note Z Z ; from Bacon to 
Mr. Massey, note 4 A, text 62. 

Letters alluded to by Essex on his trial, 
note 4 E, text 79 ; from Essex to 
Bacon, respecting the solicitorship, 
Sept. 1593, and March, 1594, note 
P P, text 31 ; respecting Novum 
Organum, note B B B ; with pre- 
sents to statesmen, note Z Z. 

L'Hopital, his abolition of Epices, 
note Z Z. 

Life, shortness of, note X O. 

Lords' Journals, entry of interview 
between King and Bacon, pending 
bribery charge, note GGG. 

Love of truth, strength of, note 
XOT. 

Lunacy, error in legislating against, 
note X O U. 

Machine for showing the motion of 
planets, invented by Bacon, note 
YY, text 34. 

Masque in Gray's Inn, note T. 

Mathew, Mr., letter to, respecting 
Novum Organum, note B B B. 

Mathew, Toby, presented with Ad- 
vancement of Learning, note AAA. 

Meautys, proprietor of Gorhambury, 
inscription on his grave, note C. 

Memorandum by Bacon of conference 
with King, note Z Z ; from conference 
with King on 16 April, note Z Z. 

Milton, early rising of, note X O V. 

Mind, knowledge of, its importance, 
note WWW. 

Miscellaneous observations on Novum 
Organum, note B B B. 

Modernizing essays, note 3 L, text 26. 

More, Sir Thomas, refuses presents, 
note Z Z. 

Morrison's account of Essex's trial, 
note 4C, text 70. 



Mother of Francis, account of, note T), 
text 1. 

Nathaniel, brother of Francis; an 
artist ; his pictures ; his ability, note 

Nature of Novum Organum, note 
B B B ; of good, double, note 3 Z, 
text 60. 

New Atlantis, note N, text 16. 

Nicholas Bacon, father of Francis, 
note C, text 1. 

Nicholls, Judge, refuses presents, note 
ZZ. 

Nicholls' progress, note Z Z Z Z. 

North, Lord Keeper, note D D D. 

Northampton, Earl of, Advancement of 
Learning preseuted to, note AAA. 

Novum Organum, see Organum. 

Novum Organum planned when a 
youth, note I, text 9 ; presentation 
copy to Sir Edward Coke ; letter to 
Walton on; translation of; copies 
of, to whom presented ; miscella- 
neous observations on ; nature of ; 
tracts relating to ; edition of ; by 
Rawley ; by Tenison ; by Montagu ; 
note BBB. 

Noy, Mr. note GGG. 

Objections by lawyers to reform of 
law, note C C C. 

Observations on Novum Organum, 
note BBB; on essays, note 3 I, 
text 37. 

Occupation, worldly, prevents pro- 
gress of knowledge, note X O V. 

Organum, Novum, observations by 
different authors upon, note BBB. 

Parliamentary exertions of Bacon, 

note 3 S, text 44. 
Parliamentary proceedings against Ba- 
con, note GGG. 
Passions, knowledge of, note W W W. 
Patent, Bacon's, for Lord Keeper, 

note GGG; respecting Dulwich 

stayed, note X O Y. 
Patronage, a sacred trust, note 4 A, 

text 62. 
Paulet, note G. 
Pedigree of Lord Verulam's family, 

note C. 
Peerage, refusal of, by Sutton, note 

A AAA. 
Pension on Bacon, note T T T. 
Persons to whom Advancement of 

Learning presented, note AAA. 
Petition by Aubrey ; by Egerton, note 

GGG. 



INDEX TO THE NOTES. 



Philosophical glass invented by Bacon, 
note Y Y, text 34. 

Pictures, of Sir Nicholas Bacon ; of 
Anne Grimstone ; by Nathaniel Ba- 
con, note C. 

Planets, their motion shewn by a ma- 
chine invented by Bacon, note Y Y, 
text 34. 

Play fair, Dr. asked to translate Ad- 
vancement into Latin, his death, 
beautiful eulogy on his death, note 
AAA. 

Pleadings on both sides by one advo- 
cate, note 4 B, text 62. 

Plutarch, note Q Q Q. 

Ponds, Bacon's, note C. 

Portrait of Anne Grimstone, note C. 

Posthumous essays, note 3 I, text 37. 

Praise of Bacon by Ben Jonson, Fuller, 
Aubrey, and Lloyd, note Z Z. 

Presentation copies of Advancement of 
Learning, note AAA; of Novum 
Organum, note B B B. 

Presents to judges in Rome, in Eng- 
land, in France, to statesmen, re- 
fused by Hale, no influence on 
Bacon's judgment, from suitors be- 
fore and after Bacon's time, note 
Z Z ; to kings, note Z Z Z Z. 

Principles, importance of, note L, text 
11. 

Proceedings in parliament against Ba- 
con, note G G G. 

Proceedings on charges of bribery, note 
GGG. 

Progress, Nicholls', note Z Z Z Z. 

Procter, Sir Stephen, his project re- 
lating to penal law, note C C, text 
27. 

Puckering, Bacon's letter to, respect- 
ing the Queen's displeasure as to 
his speech in parliament, note E E, 
text 28. 

Purse and great seal of Sir Nicholas, 
how preserved, note C. 

Pygmalion's frenzy, note X O V. 

Raw ley, his observations on Novum 

Organum, note B B B. 
Raleigh, Sir Walter, note XX X X. 
Recreations of Cicero, note X O V. 
Reform in law by L'Hdpital, note 

ZZ. 
Reform of the law, Bacon's speech 

upon, gradual, note B B, text 27 ; 

opposed by lawyers, note C C C. 
Regal character, discussion upon, by 

Hazlitt, in his political essays, note 

S S, text 32. 
Register of Star Chamber, reversion 



of, given by Elizabeth to Bacon, 
note Z Z, text 27. 

Remedies for defects of chancery, note 
DDD. 

Retirement, love of, letters to Essex 
and Lord Treasurer, and dedication 
to his brother, note S, text 22. 

Revelation of opinion and conceal- 
ment, note F F, text 28. 

Reversion of registry given to Bacon, 
note Z Z, text 27. 

Rising, early, by Milton, note X O V. 

Rome, presents to judges in, note Z Z ; 
reform of law in, note B B, text 27. 

Sale of offices abolished in France, 
note Z Z. 

Salisbury, Earl, presented with Ad- 
vancement of Learning, note AAA. 

Seal, great, of Sir Nicholas now pre- 
served, note C. 

Sensibility of Bacon, note G, text 3. 

Sensuality of Judge Jeffries, note 
XOV. 

Shaftsbury, Lord, note W W W. 

Ship of fools, notes B B B, Y Y Y Y. 

Shortness of life, note XOV. 

Sleep, excessive, note XOV. 

Speech of Williams on taking his seat, 
note BBBB. 

Speeches of Bacon, from Harleian 
MSS., note AY, text 90. 

Spenser, Burghley's treatment of, his 
lines to Elizabeth upon not being 
paid for his poems, note X, text 25. 

Star Chamber, registry of, given to 
Bacon, note Z Z, text 27. 

Stanhope, Lord, his invention to dis- 
cover insensible perspiration, note 
Y Y, text 34. 

State of Europe, note Q, text 17 ; first 
treatise of Bacon's, ibid. 

Statesmen, education of, neglected in 
England, note C C C ; presents to, 
note Z Z. 

Statute of Uses, Bacon's work on, 
various editions of, note 3 R, text 
42. 

Subsidies, Bacon's speech upon, of- 
fensive to the Queen, note D D, text 
28. 

Suggestions for improvement of law 
tracts, certificate touching penal law, 
compiling and amending law, digest 
of the laws of England, dedication 
and preface to Law Maxims, act 
against usury, ordinance for admi- 
nistration of justice in chancery, 
Justitia Universalis, note C C, text 
27. 



INDEX TO THE NOTES. 



Suitors' presents, before and after Ba- 
con's time, note Z Z. 

Sutton, his letter refusing peerage, his 
refusal to be a peer, note A A A A. 

Sutton's Hospital, note X O Y. 

Sydney Papers. Trial of Essex, note 
4C, text 70. 



Temple, Sir William, note Z Z Z. 

Tenison, his observations on Play- 
fair's attempt to translate the Ad- 
vancement, note AAA. 

Tenison and Rawley, extracts from, 
upon their Felicem Memoria Eliza- 
bethae, note 4 H, text 94. 

Time, division of, by Alfred, note 
XOT. 

Tracts relating to Novum Organum, 
note BBB. 

Translations of Novum Organum, note 
BBB. 

Truth, love of, note X O T. 



Universal justice, note R, text 22 ; 
description and analysis of, note 

Universities, defects of, note K, text 
11. 



Vacations, misapplying, note XOT. 
Villiers Street, note A. 



Want of time, obstacle to acquire 
knowledge, note X O V. 

Wasting time by misapplying vaca- 
tions, notes X O T, X O V. 

Weldon, his falsehoods, note E E E. 

Wife of Bacon, note H H H. 

Will, leaves a sum for lectures in the 
universities, note M, text 63. 

Williams, Bishop, observations on, by 
Weldon, note Z Z. 

Williams, Lord Keeper, his dream re- 
lated by Hacket ; letter of remon- 
strance to Buckingham, note Z Z ; 
his taking his seat in chancery ; his 
speech upon taking his seat as Lord 
Keeper, note BBBB; charge of 
bribery against, note Z Z. 

Wisdom of Ancients, account of, note 

ccc. 

Wives of Harbottle Grimstone, ac- 
count of, note C. 

Wolf makes only Agnus of alphabet, 
note XOT. 

Words, Idle, study of, note W W W. 

Works of Bacon's mother, note D, 
text 1. 

Worldly occupation prevents progress 
of knowledge, note X O V. 

Wotton, letter to, with Novum Or- 
ganum, note BBB. 

York House, note A, text 1. 
Young, Sir Richard, note G G G. 



THE END. 



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